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Saving school record sat issue

Raising eyebrows are plans to buy sprinklers for a storage area and plasma TVs for some lunchrooms.

By EDDY RAMIREZ
Published July 16, 2006

INVERNESS - How much is the School Board willing to spend to keep a storage building from burning?

Try a quarter million dollars.

That's how much it could cost to install a sprinkler system in a building that is temporarily being used to house student records.

No one has committed money to the project yet. But if staff members don't come up with other ways to protect the records, the board may be compelled to absorb the hefty cost.

The installation of a sprinkler system was one of several expenses that raised eyebrows at recent School Board meetings. Another included the purchase of four plasma televisions for middle school lunchrooms to the tune of $8,000.

To some on the board, spending money on such items as sprinklers seemed wasteful.

"There are so many needs that we have that have to do with education programs and curriculum," said board member Pat Deutschman after hearing about the cost to fireproof the storage facility. "Those records are not making anybody any smarter or making our schools work better."

The records are being kept in a building that sits along Main Street next to the main district office. Many of the records contain sensitive information. They include legal and financial documents as well as student transcripts and test results.

Mike Mullen, executive director of support services, recommended that the board set aside as much as $250,000 for the project, saying many of those records would be irreplaceable after a fire.

Unlike other school districts that save electronic copies of old paper records, Citrus stashes its in cabinets and boxes. After all these years, the district has run out of storage space.

Now that the district has made plans to remodel the building, it would like to put in a sprinkler system - even though fire authorities have said the district is not legally required to do so.

In the end, the board decided to wait.

They have asked staff members to look into how much it would cost to either move the records elsewhere or save electronic copies of the records.

Board member Bill Murray seemed to think the discussion was pointless.

"If there's a fire," he said, "they're either going to be on fire or they are going to be soaked."

Last week, board members also questioned food services director Shirley Greene about how she intended to spend a $1-million budget surplus.

The district must spend the excess money or risk losing future state and federal dollars. Greene has proposed spending the surplus a laundry list of ways over the next two years.

Among the items that recently caught the eye of board member Linda Powers was the purchase of four plasma televisions for the middle school cafeterias. She seemed hesitant to allow $8,000 to go for televisions if their only purpose was to display lunch menus while students waited in line.

Greene seemed to appease Powers when she explained last week that the middle school principals had requested the televisions in the cafeteria so students could watch the morning closed-circuit TV shows during breakfast.

That would leave teachers with more time in the mornings to teach.

The board, which was not asked to vote on the purchase, didn't question Greene any further.

The food services director has also made plans to hire additional staff, purchase new refrigerators and dishwashers and lower the price of breakfast at all middle schools and high schools.

About $300,000 of the surplus will go toward improving the quality of food.

Eddy Ramirez can be reached at eramirez@sptimes.com or 860-7305.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 22:31:26]