FARMINGTON -- Farmington School District plans to install speed bumps in the parking lot next to the administration building in response to a project recommended by a group of students in the EAST program at Farmington Junior High School.
The students -- Charles Bublitz, Shelby Earnheart and Raeleigh Meyer -- presented their idea last week to Farmington School Board, and board President Jeff Oxford immediately said he would donate $50 to help the team reach its financial goal.
EAST is a student driven program that is community focused and project based. Reeves Barr serves as facilitator for the 7th- and 8th-grade EAST program.
The students used a Power Point presentation, titled "Keeping FJHS Safe," to show how they came up with the idea for speed bumps in the parking lot to keep students safe.
The students said they want to stop drivers from speeding through the parking lot because students use the lot to get to other classes on campus. The lot can be dangerous if a driver is not paying attention to students walking through the area, they said.
They recommended installing four speed bumps in the lot to reduce the chance of anyone getting hurt.
Research shows if a car hits a kid, the student has a 50 percent chance of dying at the speeds that vehicles are going in the parking lot, according to the students' presentation. A chart showed that a fatality occurs 85 percent of the time if a car going 40 miles per hour hits a person. At 30 miles per hour, the fatality rate is 45 percent. At 20 miles per hour, the fatality rate is 5 percent.
The students told the School Board they already had raised $1,000 of the $1,144 cost for the speed bumps through a Facebook fundraiser. Oxford then offered $50 toward the cost. High school teacher Stefani Earnheart said the PTSA planned to give $100 to the students, which meant the students had raised all the money they needed.
Superintendent Bryan Law said the school tries to monitor the parking lot but he admitted a lot of students walk through the parking lot multiple times during the day.
Ultimately, Law said, improvements will be made at the junior high school and students will not have to walk outside to go to other classes.
That's probably several years away, he said.
In other business, Farmington School Board extended Law's three-year contract so that it goes through 2022-23. Law is in his seventh year as superintendent of schools. The board met in executive session before reconvening in public to vote on the contract.
Music teacher Krisin Cotroneo received the Sam's Above and Beyond Award for January for her work in starting a Glee Club at Farmington Middle School. The monthly award is sponsored by Sam's Furniture and Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce to recognize outstanding teachers in area school districts.
The board approved a recommendation from Law to increase the pay for substitute teachers. For 1-19 days, a substitute teacher will receive $75 per day. It increases to $90 for 20-29 days and to $155 per day for 30 or more days.
The board also gave its OK to accept sealed bids to sell an old 1995 school bus for salvage.
General News on 02/06/2019