PRAIRIE GROVE -- Prairie Grove School District's technology director Shawn Witt was able to take advantage of a Black Friday sale and jumped on the opportunity to purchase 350 Chromebook touchscreen tablets for $116,877.
Witt and Superintendent Reba Holmes asked the School Board last week to approve the purchase after the fact because of the emergency timing to get the devices.
Witt said one of his vendors had the devices for a Black Friday event and offered them to the school district but he had to make an almost immediate decision.
Holmes said she told him, "Here's my signature. Let's go for it."
Holmes told board members, "We're asking you to approve what we've done."
The board unanimously approved the purchase of 350 Lenovo Duet Chromebook Tablets. Witt said the $350 cost per device was a fair price.
Witt has talked about problems with ordering and purchasing Chromebooks because of the effects of the covid-19 pandemic for many months now.
The district still has 750 Chromebooks on backorder, Witt said. His department has been "patching up" old Chromebooks as much as possible.
"We have every computer we can use out now," Witt told board members at their Nov. 17 meeting.
Vendors are telling him that schools already are ordering computers for the 2021-22 school year.
One vendor told him, "My advice is to order now for July."
Witt said he's hoping an order of 500 computers will arrive in December or January but this same order has been delayed before.
"There's still a shortage and a demand and I hope we're getting near the end," Witt said.
This was the board's first meeting after the Nov. 3 general election, and board members voted to keep the same officers for the year. J.C. Dobbs will continue as board president; Casie Ruland, vice president; and Bart Orr, secretary.
Holmes was asked if students will be able to return to on-site classes after Thanksgiving or if she thinks the district should remain virtual for those grades for a longer period.
The elementary school, middle school and junior high school switched to virtual learning on Nov. 9 and are scheduled to return to on-site learning Nov. 30.
Holmes said that decision would be made on the Friday after Thanksgiving. She said she can make the call to switch to virtual learning for three days but anything longer has to be approved by the Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas Department of Health.
"We have permission to do it through Thanksgiving and then we'll re-evaluate," Holmes said. "On Friday before, we'll look at all the numbers."
The main reason for the switch, Holmes noted, was because so many support staff members had to go into quarantine. For example, she said one person tested positive in the elementary kitchen and that meant all others had to quarantine because they were in close contact with the employee.
The district also had bus drivers in quarantine.
In other action, the board gave its approval for the district to purchase a 2015 90-passenger school bus with almost 75,000 miles on it for $67,500. David Kellogg, assistant superintendent, had not made a final decision on the bus but asked for approval in case he decided to purchase the vehicle.
The board also approved paying an additional $2,500 per month to Flood Janitorial Services for its work. The monthly cost will increase from $25,490 to $27,990. Kellogg outlined many ways the company is going above and beyond for the district during the pandemic and how it has absorbed the higher cost of supplies. In addition, he pointed out the state's minimum wage goes up in 2021.
Under its consent agenda, the board accepted resignations from two paraprofessionals, Karen Oelrich and Danyeill Stewart, and hired a bus driver. It approved three student transfers from Prairie Grove to Elkins, Lincoln and Farmington.
Lisa Spence received the Above and Beyond Award from Sam's Furniture and Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce for the month of November. Spence works with the alternative school and has taken on a district role to help with Lincoln Learning virtual platform.