The School Board is meeting on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday this week, which means if you haven’t studied up on the agenda, you may want a cheat sheet.
Here are five items to watch for:
1. Meet the new board (almost) the same as the old board.
Erica Whitfield
The elections are over and it’s time to swear in the winners three incumbents, Marcia Andrews, Karen Brill and Debra Robinson, and new-comer Erica Whitfield. Then the seven board members vote on who will be their chair person – Chuck Shaw’s term ends. This happens at 4 p.m. during the Reorganization Meeting.
2. $38,000 worth of bus washes
It’s one of those math problems. The district has 800 old buses that need washed twice a year and 110 buses that by lease must be washed quarterly. The district can’t keep up with its bus washing obligations without help from the county. How much is a bus wash worth? And where can they do it?
3. The district is buying 9 new ESE buses
These are full-sized buses with wheelchair lifts to replace older ones. This is the rest of the bus order. The board had approved buying 114 buses and six vans in February for $12.3 million. The 110 were bought. Then the staff reviewed its needs and decided nine buses with lifts was best. The purchase,of about $1.2 million would be within the budget originally approved.
4. Spotting bad guys before they get on campus.
No more typing 40,000 names into a computer by hand to check their criminal backgrounds if the school board signs off on $294,000 contract to have Raptor run the names in all 50 states automatically.
5. 3 roofs get new shine
Florida Power & Light will add a reflective roof coating to Inlet Grove High (formerly Suncoast High), Riviera Beach Preparatory and Achievement Academy and Odyssey middle school at no cost to the district. While it doesn’t extend the life of the roof, it should cut energy used to cool the school by up to 15 percent. That’s a combined 875,000 square feet. The rebate of 45 cents per square foot will pay for the coating and the contractor’s work to apply it.
