Price named regional BOE chair, MCHS Solar bid rejected
BY PHILL BARNETT
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — The Board of Education met March 13 at a rescheduled time due to the 15th Region Tournament last week. The top agenda items included staff and school reports as well as bids for various contracts with the district.
After approving the previous meeting’s minutes and budget updates provided by Treasurer Earnest Hale, the board turned their attention to bids for the Martin County Middle School Vestibule, the Martin County High School Solar Project, yearly BOE financial audits and cleaning services.
The Martin County Middle School Vestibule is a proposed construction project that would connect two sections of the school via a hallway. According to Superintendent Larry James, the lowest bid for the project came in at around $98,000.
“It’s about twice as much as what we were expecting,” said James. “I recommend we don’t accept it; maybe table it and see if they can get the price lower.”
The board voted to reject the bid and table the discussion.
The Martin County High School Solar Project, which would construct a solar panel array on High School grounds to offset electricity costs for the district, has received two rounds of bidding. The lowest bid in the most recent round saw only one bid of $401,523. According to James, this is approximately $47,000 less than the previous bid but still nearly twice the cost the board had anticipated.
“I recommend we do the same thing as the other one and we reject it,” said James. “At that price it would take us 32 years to get paid back on the solar panels.”
“I’m probably not supposed to say,” started James, “we had someone call in late, so we’re researching that company… it sounds promising.”
The board voted to reject the bid and rebid the project. The board may have to sign a construction contract this year to retain funding for the project.
The board voted to take bids for auditors for their annual audit. They also voted to take bids for cleaning services in the district’s schools.
Though Administrative Staff reports and a report from the Martin County Education Association were on the agenda, presentations were not given.
The RTI teachers from each elementary school presented evaluation metrics from their respective schools to the board. Response to Intervention (RTI) is an educational support system that schools use to identify and address when students are struggling to learn. Each student’s unique course through the RTI program is adjusted based on their response to the intervention techniques used.
The teachers discussed overall trends for their schools as well as specific success stories. According to the teachers, though many students are not meeting overall growth goals, there is incremental improvement across the board and the students tend to respond positively to their intervention.
All three instructors agreed that attendance and truancy are a significant problem in elementary schools, with some students accumulating as many as 51 absences so far this year. Parents in these instances are reported to be uncooperative. The teachers and others at the meeting suggested that parents keep their children home for illness when they simply have allergies.
The schools have been unable to get a judge to take action on recent truancy cases. In some cases, parents have placed their children on homebound.
Board chairperson Mickey McCoy suggested that it’s an “epidemic” when it comes to accountability for students’ attendance.
“It’s hard for me to understand the rationale the parent has for not wanting their child to learn,” said McCoy.
Superintendent James announced that board member Kathleen Price had been named regional board chairperson, which was met with applause. According to James, she is the first regional board chairperson from Martin County.
She will oversee meetings for the Martin, Lawrence, Johnson, Floyd, Pike and Magoffin counties regional Board of Education.
The meeting concluded with a closed session and the approval of the superintendent’s evaluation.