School board regular meetings, such as Oct. 19, are held at East Hills MS and are used as general updates and to officially approve agenda items, while the bulk of the board’s discussions and public work are held during committee meetings at the Education Center.

Recent committee items include an alternative transportation contract for special cases, vendor payments, and a Liberty HS Student Activities elevator repair.

Chief of Facilities and Operations Mark Stein had to delay a planned board member tour of the new Fountain Hill ES building because the stairs were not yet installed, and the tour is now scheduled for Nov. 2. He said the project is on budget and on schedule. Stein also said the district has locked down good prices for its natural gas needs and hopes to extend a similar deal while the getting is good until 2028.

The board received three bids for elevator, approving by far the least – $39,770 to Kone, Inc. – which came in almost $25,000 under the next best option. Stein said he wasn’t certain why the numbers were so varied, but he suggested Kone wanted to remain in the district’s good graces as it is the current contractor for such work.

Board Members Dr. Karen Beck Pooley and Dr. Silagh White pressed upon Stein to reach out to community partners to spread word of the ongoing District Design community input meetings, Beck Pooley explained, “District Design is a comprehensive look at how BASD is structured today [and] how we should plan for the future. It includes enrollment, class sizes, school locations, facilities, attendance boundaries, programs, education needs, financial resources… BASD has not undertaken a major district redesign since the 1990s, which many of us remember but we were very different at the time and so is the district. So it’s worth collectively thinking about all of these things again. Community input [is] especially important.”

You can ask your local school administrators for more information and how to engage, but the next District Design meeting will be Nov. 4 at 6 p.m. at Northeast MS with optional streaming, and the online surveys are available in English and Spanish. “Now is the time that we want to start hearing from people,” said Beck Pooley. “We want this to be a very open and collaborative conversation because these efforts go far better when they are.”

The next board meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Education Center, 1516 Sycamore St.