Fillmore Elem. internet tower to receive upgrades

Thursday, July 7, 2016

After a lengthy discussion, the South Putnam School Board voted to upgrade the internet connection at Fillmore Elementary at a cost of $31,685.80.

The need for the upgrade comes after the school received the Digital Learning Grant from the Indiana Department of Education, which will be used to purchase in-class devices for the third and fourth grades at Fillmore Elementary. The devices are expected to be available this fall.

"The Digital Learning Grant has moved our timeline up for devices at (Fillmore Elementary)," Steve Ricketts, Five-Star Director of Technology, said. "This was something I really wasn't planing on looking at until next year. With us putting additional devices out there, that connection would quickly be overrun, oversaturated."

Director Ricketts had looked into the cost of installing internet fibers to run between the middle/high school to the elementary, but said that cost estimates had been as high as $100,000.

"When you're talking fiber, you're talking big bucks," Director Ricketts explained. "When you're talking just a couple of miles, you're talking big bucks. We're talking four or five miles; it doesn't surprise me at all that it's $100,000."

But, even without the new devices, Director Ricketts said that the tower is badly in need of work.

"The current connection that we have," he said, "it's end of life. We had a lightning strike at at Fillmore a couple years ago, and they were down for five or six days because we couldn't get parts. We've pulled the one off the Reelsville tower just in case, but it's a long shot."

Tona Gardner, Director of Cirriculum Instruction and Technology Integration, added, "We have grant dollars to buy the devices this year, so as soon as we can get the infrastructure in place, then we can add the devices for third and fourth grades."

Director Ricketts said he expects fiber will be available in 10 years, but that in any case the approved upgrades would be sufficient for complete 1:1 technology integration at Fillmore Elementary School in the future. If all goes well, the approved upgrades will be completed before the start of the upcoming school year.

In other developments:

-- The board approved increasing school lunch prices in a 4-1 vote with Angie Nichols being the dissenter. The new prices now sit at $2.60 (elementary, 5-cent increase), $2.75 (middle/high school, 15-cent increase) and $3.40 (adult, 80-cent increase). There will be no changes to milk and reduced lunch prices.

The new prices were determined by Cafeteria Manager Lori Boyce, who was required to use state-mandated calculations. Boyce said that prices would have had to be raised last year except for a state-issued waiver, but no such waiver was available this year.

The increase in adult prices was not state-mandated, but adult lunches are not federally re-imbursed and the increase was necessary to cover growing costs, Superintendent Bruce Bernhardt said.

-- The board approved new textbook rental prices at the elementary schools, all of which went down.

"We're going to continue to use (a current) math series book and in some grade levels we've eliminated a workbook," Supt. Bernhardt said. "We charge 15 percent instead of 25 percent for the full cost of the book. We also eliminated printing a student handbook."

The board approved the continued use of the elementary math textbook, as well as Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt's "GO Math!" online program for the middle school and Discovery Education's online "Math Techbook" for the high school geometery, algebra and algebra II courses.

-- The board approved the adoption of "Internal Controls Policy 6111," which concerns financial accounting and reporting. A copy of the policy is available in the Superintendent's office.

-- The board approved the 2016-17 student handbooks. The elementary handbooks will be available as an online PDF.

-- The board approved moving, selling or disposing an unused meat slicer and moving a floor mixer to the high school. The board also approve the purchase of a new walk-in freezer, which will be a foot taller than the last unit, for the high school at a cost of $3,083 from Sycamore.

-- The board approved the purchase of two new buses at a total cost of $187,339. The cost includes the value of two trade-ins at a total of $200,000. The funds are to come out of the Bus Replacement Fund. State law dictates that all school buses must be replaced every 12 years.

-- The board approved installing a sidewalk on the west side of the high school this summer at a cost of $23,005. The school received bids from Joe Spiker Excavating, DEEM, and Scobee Brothers Concrete, but the last company was selected for the job. The board expects to install a sidewalk on the back side of the school next summer.

In other business:

-- The board approved the June claims at a total of a little more than $1 million, a large increase from May's claims and from the corporation's average of $500,000. President Wes Hacker, Vice President Steve Cash and Anthony Heavin asked questions about specific purchases, and Superintendent Bernhardt explained the overall increase by saying that, "We had some lease rental payments to make on buildings in June. We do that twice a year in June and December to pay for construction and/or remodeling bonds that we have taken out on the buildings."

-- The board approved the resignation of Tiffany Douglass (middle/high school science teacher) and Todd Norris (band/choir teacher) as well as the termination of Jennifer Buchannan (food service).

-- The board approved the hire of Alex Lupinski (middle/high school math teacher), Nicole Morrison (science teacher), Zachary Waycott (business teacher), Mary Winters (Central Elementary special education teacher), Morgan Schmitt and Kyle Hutchison (custodians) and Angela Garl (summer mower/bus worker).

The next board meeting will be July 18 at 7 p.m. in the Central Elementary music room.

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