Cloverdale begins looking ahead with technology, construction

The Cloverdale Community School Corporation held its monthly board meeting on Monday evening. One of the issues discussed was moving forward with the building project and facility updates.

Steve Ricketts of Five Star started the meeting off speaking on several of the technology updates that have recently been completed in all of the Cloverdale schools.

"It's been a busy summer for technology," said Ricketts. "We are moving toward that 21st century learning model."

Among the things upgraded this summer were migrating from the Novell to Microsoft systems, adding 130 new workstations and 120 new netbooks.

"We added 120 new netbooks for the sixth graders," explained Ricketts. "Which then put the second through sixth grades in a one-to-one computer set up."

The corporation has also begun using the Destiny Library Management system.

"It's for complete library management," explained Ricketts. "But, it allows us to take advantage of managing e-books. However, it's not replacing books."

Ricketts and the corporation will soon begin looking toward the 2013-14 school year in the coming months.

There has been a big push from the Indiana Department of Education to work toward innovation, which is what Cloverdale plans to do.

"Cloverdale is the most ready to make that jump," said Ricketts. "They have all the pieces of the puzzle."

The Indiana Department of Education will be providing planning grants for innovative learning, which Cloverdale plans on applying for along with coming up with a strong plan for 21st century learning.

Superintendent Carrie Milner recently met with the building contractors for the upcoming building project that will soon begin.

Milner told the board she will be meeting with the contractors every other week to keep up to date on all progress.

The project will cost $913,000 total, which is far less than the board had originally expected, as it received a $2 million bond.

The board is now left with the remaining funds, which they plan to use on replacing chillers, boilers and a new plate frame handler unit.

The board hopes to begin receiving bids at the next meeting in October. Depending on timing, work may begin sometime this fall.

Also, depending on pricing the board hopes to resurface the track, which is third on its priority list.

Jeff Underwood spoke to the board on maintenance issues regarding the press box. As of now, there is no way to condition the press box, which holds several important pieces of equipment including tuners, booster equipment, the PA system and the score board controller.

"We've lost a radio before," explained Underwood. "Without the conditioning the equipment will slowly degrade."

Underwood presented the board with a quote from Precision for $5,900. This includes a one and a half ton mini split heat pump system, which will be able to heat and condition the box.

"It will be mounted on the back of the press box to avoid vandalism," Underwood said.

Also, in hopes of preventing vandalism, the board agreed to purchase a high-resolution night vision camera for $4,500. It is undetermined exactly where it will be placed, however it will be in a spot that will cover the most area.

"We all hate having the camera in the sky," said Milner. "But, it has helped us address several issues before."

Finally, Underwood asked the board about installing a wireless scoreboard and a 25-second play clock, as moisture is getting to the current wiring, causing it to short.

The board was originally going to wait on approval for these items, however a push from fellow board member Brian Asbury got all items approved.

The board also approved prepaying its fuel costs from Goss Oil. The company recently offered Cloverdale a discounted rate of $.05 off per gallon if paid within 10 days.

The following personnel items also received approval: the hiring of Julie Dix as a high school FACS teacher; Louis Bennington as a part-time middle school custodian; the resignation of Laura Cross as the high school FACS teacher and Lavada Boyette as the middle school custodian; reassignments of Gwen Stattner from cook to head cook at the middle school; Jackie Hoffa as the middle school day custodian and Julie McKamey as the middle school part-time custodian.

Brad Davis was approved as a volunteer assistant girls seventh and eighth grade girls basketball coach, along with Chase Haltom as a volunteer varsity assistant for the boys basketball team.

The following students were honored as students of the month for the month of September: elementary school student Jeremy Hess, middle school student Malaressa Patton and high school student Claudia Monnett.