School board to consider $1.8 million window replacement at Salisbury High

Published 12:03 am Sunday, May 22, 2022

SALISBURY — The Rowan-Salisbury Schools Board of Education will consider a project to replace all the exterior windows on Salisbury High School’s main building.

The addition will be up for discussion during the board’s Monday meeting at Wallace Educational forum. The meeting will begin at 4:30 p.m. and can also be tuned into online via vimeo.com/rssboe.

RSS Chief Operations Officer Anthony Vann said the project will replace the exterior windows and doors on the school’s main building, but not the auxiliary buildings at the school.

Vann said some of the windows on the main building are original to the 1926 facility and while some windows have been replaced, they were switched out decades ago and windows have come a long way since.

The $1.8 million project would be paid for through federal COVID-19 relief money and Vann said the project should save 10% on the school’s power costs at a minimum. He said the project should also improve the comfort level in the school by keeping temperatures inside more consistent.

The board will considering contracting with Carolina Classic Window and Glass, which submitted the lowest bit for the project.

In other agenda items:

• The board will consider increasing the reimbursement rate for activity buses from $1.25 per mile to $2.

The district has not increased the cost for at least 10 years and administration points to increases in fuel and service costs for the buses as justifying the increase. RSS currently has the lowest reimbursement rate for activity buses out of all its neighboring districts.

Vann said the transportation department bills schools for the cost when they use the buses and the reason the expenses are charged per-school is to separate state from local money. The state pays for yellow buses that take students to school each day.

“The district does pay an allowance to high schools and a small amount of money to middle schools for athletics,” Vann said.

• The board will consider approving $190,000 split between three contracts to continue the services the district receives from the firm Education Resource Group for its lab school at Koontz Elementary.

The contracts, funded through a federal grant paying for the lab school programs, pay for a coaching model used in the lab school and coaching consultants from ERG.

• The board will consider a calendar update for the coming school year to add an additional remote e-learning day on March 7. The additional date was requested by high school principals and high school juniors would still report to school for the statewide ACT testing day.

• The board will consider its annual memorandum of understanding with Rowan-Cabarrus Community college. The agreement outlines the cooperative programs between the district and the college.

• The board will review approving student fees for the coming school year. The fees have not been changed.

About Carl Blankenship

Carl Blankenship has covered education for the Post since December 2019. Before coming to Salisbury he was a staff writer for The Avery Journal-Times in Newland and graduated from Appalachian State University in 2017, where he was editor of The Appalachian.

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