In its final meeting of the year Dec. 8, the East Penn School Board approved the award of the district's multi-function and copy machines contract to Fraser Advanced Information Systems.

The contract was originally to be awarded in October, but district administration recommended pulling the item off the agenda to allow for more time to clarify language in the requests for proposal and to review the bids from each responding contractor.

Fraser's five-year contract is for $109,554 semiannually, at a savings to the district of $84,000 from the previous provider.

Fraser was awarded the contract over the district's previous provider, Xerox. A representative of the latter corporation spoke briefly to the board regarding the then pending decision at the opening of the meeting.

He asked the board point blank whether the district was willing to compromise on the services provided knowing the machines cannot provide some of the same functions Xerox had provided the district, simply because the other option is cheaper.

District Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder explained in a statement to the board the seven bids were weighed carefully. Schilder said what it came down to was "the difference between proposals," and whether they could live with them.

These differences boiled down to items like glue versus tape as a binding mechanism on large scale publications; inline versus offline binding and the quantity of paper capable of being held in each tray. The administration determined the district could live with these differences when balanced against a savings of $84,000– comparable to a single teacher's salary with benefits.

There is also a beneficial provision in the five-year agreement with Fraser allowing the district to withdraw from the contract should the services, machinery or any component thereof not meet performance standards.

In such a case, the district would begin a new RFP process.

The motion was passed with dissenting votes from Charles Ballard, Rebecca Heid and Wally Vinovskis.

In other business, the board received a presentation from Public Financial Management regarding the reissuing of certain bond series to realize a potential minimum savings of $200,000. These include the Series A of 2008, Series A of 2009, Series of 2010 and/or Series A of 2010. Scott Shearer of PFM noted the company has saved the district over $12 million to date in similar bond reissues.

Board Director Lynn Donches asked Shearer whether waiting until the 2015 call date of the bonds might not be a better idea, and whether there were any financial benefit to PFM if the bonds were reissued now. Shearer responded while PFM is paid for its services for these transactions, the company's goal is to see to the district's financial interests and waiting until the call date would be a risk possibly resulting in losing the current low interest rates.

Donches's was the only vote against the motion for PFM to proceed with preparing the bonds for reissue.

The board also approved several updates to the Emmaus High School program of studies. These included removal of courses which have not been taught for several years due to a steady decline in student interest and the implementation of prerequisites developed to better prepare students for more advanced courses.

In addition, some language from the College Board were added to the description for Advanced Placement U.S. and European history courses, designating a framework from the College Board within which to structure the curriculum for those courses.

Donches questioned the efficacy of this framework in creating an environment for students that did not lead them toward any one ideology over another. But the idea was staunchly supported by Earnshaw, Ziad Munson, and others, who attested to the AP courses' great success in giving many students a head start for their college years.

Schilder in his report to the board introduced the idea of generating public interest in a foundation, comprising a core group of individuals within the community with the intent of raising funds toward either a particular sort of goal within the district's schools, or for district needs in a general sense.

Schilder says he has worked with foundations like this before. The idea has been brought up before but never took off, probably due to lack of interest. Schilder noted usually the members of the community are the ones who bring it before the board, not the other way around, and the board would have no deciding voice or influence on the foundation.

The board will review the matter in January, 2015 as an agenda item, with a focus on gathering interest from the public and possibly posting something on the district website.