Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The reconstituted Jefferson County School Board recently got right to work after three new members were seated, approving more than $700,000 in expenditures right off the bat.
Among the several action items that the board approved on Tuesday, Nov. 22, were the refurbishing of the new gym floor, replacement of a chiller at the high school and the purchase of 300 Chromebook laptops.
The actions followed in short order after members Willie Ann Dickey, Brenda Wirick and Magdalen “Mags” Flynt took their newly won district seats.
The first item was for Heritage Floors to repair and replace part of the basketball court floor in the gymnasium at Jefferson County K-12 School on David Road. The work order calls for the contractor to sand the wood down to the raw surface, buff and slick the raw wood, apply two coats of clear seal, and paint the floor with the appropriate markings.
The total cost of the project is $37,000, plus $90 per square foot for replacement of any damaged wood underneath the bleachers.
School Superintendent Eydie Tricquet explained that the work was in large part necessary to remove the Somerset logo from the floor. Somerset, a charter school organization, operated the school for five years before it was returned not long ago to the district.
The board next approved an expenditure of $167,152 from Howard Technology Solutions to
redo the communications network infrastructure. The restructuring, Tricquet said, was necessary because the district no longer had access to Somerset’s proprietary system. The restructuring would provide better phone service, she said
The board approved another $109,650 to Howard Technology Solutions for the purchase of 300 Chromebook Laptops and the cloud-based management consoles that allow for control of Chromebooks and a host of other administrative tasks from a single interface.
Tricquet said the Chromebooks would be made available to students, who would be held responsible if the computers were lost or damaged.
The board finally approved an expenditure of $422,900 to John D. Jones A/C, Heating and Refrigeration for a compressor chiller and piping at the high school. The new chiller, Tricquet said, was to replace the one that had gone bad.