MISD approves school renovations

Moulton ISD School Board members discussed and approved some items relating to school renovations at the June 26 meeting.

One of the first action items approved were replacing some of the bathroom stalls at the new gym.

The bathroom stalls are rusted out and look a little rough according to Superintendent Renee Fairchild.

“The panels that are in the bathroom now are a metal panel and what we’re looking at getting is a solid plastic panel,” MISD Maintenance Director Jeff Beimer said. “It will be really clean. We will also add stall dividers by the urinals in the men’s restroom to make it more sanitary and have a little more privacy. We will also touch up the paint on the ceiling. It will take about two weeks to install and get done.”

Board members looked at three quotes for the materials on this project. They opted with going with a quote from Partitions Plus for the amount of $5,480. This will be taken from the maintenance budget and the district is at almost 100% of the budget.

The next project that was looked at was renovating the old gym ceiling.

“The problem with the old gym now is that there is lead-based paint that’s in the ceiling on the stage,” Fairchild said. “If you look at the ceiling, it’s flaking off. There’s also asbestos in the side rooms. We thought about having an abatement and taking everything down and sanding everything off completely. However, it’s 28 feet in the air and you cannot get a lift up there. So, you’d have to use scaffolding to get in the air. What we are recommending though is adding a dropped ceiling.”

The drop ceiling will be dropped to about 16 feet.

“Our theater program has asked that we paint the walls black,” Fairchild said. “We can’t physically paint anything above 16 feet. So, if we have that drop ceiling down to the 16 feet mark, we can use black ceiling tiles and we don’t have to worry about painting that. Our people here can then paint the walls. So, with this, we are helping our theater program.”

MISD also wants to eliminate two lights and add in two ceiling fans in place of that so that there is air on the stage.

The quote for this bid is around $15,000 and MISD recently got a check in that same amount from an oil company, and they aim to use this money towards the bathroom renovations or the ceiling.

Discussion was made on adding in new electrical systems to the Career and Technology Education Building.

“The CTE building is in need of being able to move around the shop with their welding machines,” Beimer said. “So, what we’re looking at is adding three fifty-amp services on the wall where all the welding machines are now and one ariel fifty amp on a retractable reel. The ariel will let them be able to work on a bigger project in the middle of the shop instead of trying to keep everything along the wall. Some of their projects get big and they need to able to spread out with a longer cord to be able to weld on the other side of the shop.”

The board members tabled any action on this item because they aim to look at more bids that are local.

Finally, a new glow forge purchase for the CTE students was approved.

“A glow forge is a laser printer,” Fairchild said. “It can laser anything from metal to woods or cloth. This is a request from the CTE teachers and will be paid for with CTE money.”

The district is buying two glow forges, and it was a package deal in the amount of $16,000.

Other items on the agenda include:

• The district will be reimbursing teachers who have not used their local leave. Every employee gets three days of local leave. Eight employees who have not used their local leave for this past school year will be reimbursed $50 a day. In total, this will cost the district $1,600. MISD hopes this will give teachers an incentive to stay and not use their local leave as getting a substitute teacher costs about $100 a day.

• There was an outbreak of fleas on campus that has been treated.

• Board operating procedures for the 2024-25 school year was approved.

• MISD appointed Deborah Sevcik as the person designated to calculate the 2024 tax rate.

• Board members approved the 2024-25 staff development plan. Teachers are currently doing summer training online. There will be about three days of extensive training exclusively for new staff members.

• Recently, board members attended various school board conferences. One of the main takeaways was to potentially have more town hall meetings with parents and taxpayers. The board also aims to make a five-year plan to prepare for the future of the district. MISD board members also aims to push forward developments with the CTE program. The district also wants to continue to do training for the Guardian Program.

• Discussion was made on potentially adding new netting for the batting cages.

• The bus routes will be going for two routes for the 2024-25 school year. Also, grants were submitted for two of the older route busses.

• Hours of the weight room may change in July.

• There will most likely be a budget workshop for the first week of August. Looking forward, the district will be setting the new tax rate late in August.

• The next board meeting was moved to July 17.