MINERAL SPRINGS – School board members approved the purchase of a new vehicle for the district Monday during their regular meeting.
This vehicle will be used by Brandon Smith, the school’s resource officer – a licensed officer of the law that works for the school district and would have all the same powers as any other officer. The vehicle, to be purchased from the Dierks Police Department for the sum of $4500, is a 2009 Dodge Charger with 130,000 miles.
The vehicle, fully equipped with scanner radio and a light bar, will be used on campus during the day while also affording travel to evening school functions. The district already has two Ford Crown Victorias, but they are described as not in the best of condition with one having over 200,000 miles. The board said they would be able to potentially sell these two vehicles and make up for the cost of the purchase of the new vehicle.
In other business, the board gave unanimous approval to some mostly organizational changes to the student handbook. Some changes include a new mandatory breakfast period from 7:55-8:10 for the elementary students. For high school the changes were very small but included alterations to the path to becoming an honor student, requiring a student to take Algebra 3 instead of Algebra 2, and the maximum number of absences per semester was decreased from 15 days to 10 days.
The last two items covered were also both unanimous approvals. The first was to buy 200 new cafeteria chairs for the sum of $7,566.13, followed by the approval of the only two bread and milk bids offered from Flowers Bakery and Hiland Dairy.
Next came an update on federal fund expenditures. The district needed to spend an excess of $68,000 and were able to spend $71,900 on new Chromebooks for grades 2-8 with every student getting a personal laptop. The board also approved two items left off the agenda that included $11,637.33 spent on upgrading the band equipment and $7,600 on new asphalt for the bus loading area.
The meeting ended with an executive session lasting about 30 minutes after which the board accepted first grade teacher Morgan Baxley’s resignation along with part time office worker Sylvester Armstrong. The board also approved the hire of Tasha Fant as a dyslexia counselor. Her employment will be shared with Nashville on a 60:40 basis.
