School board approves Parkview improvements

CLOVIS —The Clovis Municipal Schools Board of Education unanimously approved parking and drainage improvements at the the new Parkview Elementary at a cost of about $495,000 at Tuesday’s meeting.

Deputy Superintendent of Operations Carrie Bunce said the district did not realize the current drainage ditch at the school would be so large until construction began.

Bunce said the project would add 32 additional parking spaces, with further expansion available in the future, and would bring the water from the drainage system under ground.

Board members said the plans would cut down on liability associated with the drainage ditch and save money in the future,

“I think even though we’re doing this upfront, in the long run it’s going to save some funds,” Board President Terry Martin said.

“I hate seeing these ponds and I know it’s a big expense but it’s a lot of the property that we can’t utilize,” Secretary Kyle Snider said.

Bunce said the project will be funded completely by the district.

Also at Tuesday’s board meeting:

• The board reorganized its leadership positions. Martin was sworn in as president, Cindy Osborn was sworn in as vice-president and Snider was sworn in as secretary.

• The board unanimously approved the removal of Ranchvale Elementary and the school’s library book collection and software from the district inventory. The school closed in 2016, giving control of the land and building back to the family who donated the land in 1930, in accordance with an agreement signed at that time.

The library book collection was distributed among other Clovis schools and the district no longer uses the software.

• The board unanimously renewed its investment policy resolution, naming Superintendent Jody Balch and Assistant Superintendent of Finance Shawna Russell as investment officers.

• The board unanimously approved a contract with Jaramillo Accounting, LLC to provide an audit for fiscal year 2018.

• The board discussed a change to board regulations where support staff accrue vacation time based on a two-week pay period rather than monthly. Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Kerry Parker said the vacation time is already accrued every two weeks but the regulations had not been updated to reflect that.

• Lockwood Elementary Principal Deborah Westbrook gave an update on the school to the board. Westbrook said all grades have shown improvement in reading and math on i-station since the beginning of the year.

“If you look at all of these data charts you can see that there’s a trajectory of growth upward and so I think its attributed to all of the different systems that were using, the data analysis processes we’ve been going through at our school,” Westbrook said.