CHURUBUSCO, Ind. – In a special meeting held Monday, June 22, 2009, the Smith-Green Community Schools Board of School Trustees hired a new elementary teacher and approved four projects to be completed this summer.
The board approved the employment of Karen Eckert of Fort Wayne for the 2009-10 school year. Eckert will teach fifth grade at Churubusco Elementary School. Eckert said she was excited to join the CES team and had heard good things about the school corporation from her peers.
Eckert was recently employed as a third grade teacher at Fairfield Elementary School in Fort Wayne.
She also taught at Mohawk Elementary School in Bensenville, Ill., worked as an academic coach at SCORE! Education Center in Chicago, taught kindergarten and second grade at St. Joseph/St. Elizabeth School in Fort Wayne and was program head of literacy center at Boys and Girls Harbor in East Hampton, New York.
Eckert is a graduate of Indiana University where she obtained a bachelor of science in elementary education, and concentration speech and hearing sciences. Eckert is currently seeking an English as a Second Language (ESL)/ bilingual endorsement from National Louis in Chicago.
The board also approved one of three options which included four of six proposed summer remodeling projects. The board will go forward with four of the projects and table the other two for a later date. They include:
- Renovation and remodeling of an elementary school restroom;
- Renovation and remodeling of a restroom at the high school;
- Renovation and remodeling of a middle school restroom near the gymnasium ;
- Renovation and remodeling of a middle school restroom near Room 99.
The two projects that were tabled included the renovation and remodeling of the nurse’s office and the installation of electronic entrance devices at all three schools’ main entrances.
Board members agreed to accept the bid from Fetters Construction for the projects, which was $49,100. Other bids included CCI Commercial Contractors for $69,889 and Witwer Construction for $50,785.
Board member Mike Sturgis, who earlier questioned why they should not proceed with all six proposed projects, voted against the plan.
Board member Nick Uecker said he would rather the electronic entrance project be put out for bid directly to an electronics company rather than to a general contractor who would then subcontract the work.
“Fetters Construction is a general contractor,” Uecker said, “not an electrical contractor.”
Wayne Krider, supervisor of school maintenance, said he felt confident the school could still put the electronics project out for bid and get the bids back in time for school staff to complete the project this summer.
Other projects slated for completion this summer include remodeling the high school office; renovation of the choir room and auditorium; a new generator; carpet in the middle school office; and new classroom doors in the middle school.
“This leaves us a little bit of room in case other projects come up,” Skiles said.
Part of the renovation of the choir room may include tearing out the concrete risers built into the floor of the classroom and filling it in with cement.
“It will be a messy project but we knew this from the beginning,” said choir director Dan Hile. “We’re not sure what’s under there. It may be solid concrete and it may not be.”
Hile said the stage floor in the auditorium – after many years of use – has begun to crack . “The front half is okay,” Hile said. “It is maple and very sturdy, but the back half is pine and is cracking and will have to be replaced.”
The stage curtains also need replaced, Hile said and there are wiring issues in the auditorium, as well.
Dick Moake of Moake Park Associates said it will take one or two core samples of the floor in the choir room to determine if the remodeling would impact the structural integrity of the choir room wall. He added that the school also needed to look into replacing the auditorium seating, which was well worn and past repairing in many places.
The board agreed to reject all of the bids on the generator project and start over with the bid process, since all bids came in over the $150,000 limit established by the board.
The school board meets again on Monday, July 6, at 7 p.m. in the administrative building.
