The Centralia High School Board Thursday night reviewed its summer construction and maintenance plans.
Superintendent Chuck Lane outlined the planned activities.
“We have several updates on our project for the summer: our solar project, they just completed a wetland study which has to do with the flow of water after a rainstorm and things like that. There’s no cost to us. We also talked about the Annex addition, the four additional classrooms. We’ve got a pre-bid meeting on May 2nd with the actual bid award date of Thursday, May 25th. We’ve also talked about our painting projects for the summer. We’re going to try and paint the majority of classrooms and offices on the first floor. The pre-bid meeting on that is May 11th and that contract will be awarded on May 25th.”
Lane and the board also discussed the possibility of adding metal detectors.
“Metal detectors are something that we’ve discussed in the past: Carbondale High School is currently using metal detectors: Marion High School next year. So I think it makes sense for us to at least be prudent about that and take a look at it. We’re going to plan on going down to Carbondale before the end of the school year and take a look and see how it works and just trying to evaluate to see if it makes sense for us to do that in the future.”
The board discussed the possibility of allowing seniors to add ornamentation to their caps at graduation as requested by a student petition earlier. However, after discussion no motion was made to allow the practice, keeping the current policy of no non-school decorations or material on the caps or gowns at graduation.
In the post-election organizational meeting, the board selected Galen Mahle as president, Keith Kessler as vice president, and Rod Snow as secretary. No elections were contested so the makeup of the board remains the same. Later Mahle was chosen to continue as the district’s KSED governing board member.
In lieu of expulsion, four students were placed at the Alternative Learning Academy. One student had pens containing marijuana oil. Another committed gross insubordination towards staff and administration. A third had a vape, one-hitter, three knives, and a burnt ‘roach’ in their vehicle on school property. The fourth had a weed pen and vape. In personnel action, the board employed Mike Cooley as the girls’ assistant soccer coach for the 2022-2023 school year.
