The Beatrice Public Schools Board Committee of the Whole met Thursday to discuss updates on the new elementary building and district policy.
BPS Superintendent Jason Alexander said architectural work on the elementary building project is going smoothly.
“A quick building update: a lot of progress being made on the architecture side of things,” Alexander said. “Yesterday, we got to have a meeting … via Zoom, and they presented us with a basic kind of three dimensional view of what the building is going to start to look like and what each classroom will start to entail. It was really exciting to be able to see that… They want to make sure that they try and get as many of the questions answered for us as they can as to what our vision is before we put that in front of everybody else, so that’s coming.”
Alexander said the construction manager committee interviewed four construction companies last week.
“They were good interviews,” he said. “We just felt like we needed more information, so our legal counsel is going out and collecting that information then to bring back to the selection committee to finalize that construction manager selection… Hopefully that will be coming next week.”
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Alexander said a meeting to try to secure financing for the building is scheduled for the week of March 14.
Alexander walked the committee through updates on the 5000 series of school policy.
“In doing this, as you can recall, we talked a lot about the graduation and communication requirements,” Alexander said. “That’s now reflected in there. But what we tried to do is break it down for you into a digestible process to where we’ve identified the changes that have taken place. Again, that can reflect anything as simple as a numerical change to a policy … or it could be a new policy that wasn’t in the previous policy manual.”
The policy updates would change the number of foreign exchange students from two to four a year. Assistant Superintendent Jackie Nielsen discussed changes to the district’s high ability learner identification.
“So we made some pretty significant changes,” Nielsen said. “We’ve done some different things with our high ability learner program. We’ve broadened it to become more of an enrichment program. So rather than just being focused on kids who are 93rd to the 99th percentile, we broadened it to look at the 85th to try to provide some more opportunities to students.”
Alexander urged committee members to take time and read through the proposed policy changes.
Alexander also discussed an emergency connectivity fund grant that would allow the purchase of 145 laptops for district teachers.
“Basically, through that process of applying for those grants, we’ll be able to update 145 new teacher laptops,” he said. “You’ll be seeing that coming in the bills as we move forward, so I want to make sure that you knew that a lot of that is being paid for through the use of ECF funds.”
A new BPS Administration Building security system will change how the public interacts with the building.
“We’re like every other building now, where people have to buzz in, and they can only access our building through this door,” Alexander said.
Alexander said state aid will decline by $574,532 next year, from $6,023,980 in 2021-22 to $5,449,448 next year.
“State aid was certified this week,” he said. “It’s not good news for us, which we expected it wouldn’t be… Two key factors. One evaluations, which went up 4.15%… When evaluations go up, state aid goes down, and our property tax payers bear the burden… The other one is student enrollment. We have a slight difference in student enrollment.”
