The Centralia High School Board has acquired 6 and a half acres of real estate adjacent to the school property. Superintendent Chuck Lane says they will pay $190,000 for the land.
“Property right there, west of airport road, people see the red and white pull barn. That’s out front its away from that area, straight west goes all the way back against our football field area. Also goes a little bit north behind the visitor bleachers and out towards the back road and that little area over there. Our plan right now is to use that pull barn as our bus shed. It won’t be anything right away because we still have a year lease left across the street”
The board also approved three bids for summer improvement work. A $737,000 bid was approved to resurface the track. Shores Builders was the lowest of three bids at $165,200 to make sidewalk improvements. Lane explains the project.
“We got some cracking and some concrete coming off the side walk around the building. So that’s going to be a good thing to get done. We’re going to be contrasting a new side walk, a short side walk, on the far west side, southwest side where kids are coming out to the buses. They walk along that fence sometimes and it’s raining and stuff and its muddy so we are just going to add a side walk there.”
The original project also included parking lot improvements, but it was removed because it would not qualify as a life safety project. The third bid is to replace part of the system that supplies water to the sprinkler system in the event of a fire. The only bid for $153,000 was awarded to Boyer Fire Protection. All the projects are being paid for by Life Safety funds already on hand.
Lane reports the budget for the current year is at a $200,000 deficit. He anticipates that to come down by the end of the fiscal year on July 1st. There is surplus from past years to cover any shortfall.
The board placed two students at the Alternative Learning Academy in lieu of being expelled. One for having two vapes and testing positive for cannabis. The second for having cannabis in a backpack on school property.
