Superintendent Bo Matthews, along with four members of the Barren County School Board of Education, member Joey Newberry was absent, to discuss various agenda items, recognized staff and a student from Eastern Elementary and received a construction update during its regular meeting on Nov. 9. Michael Crimmins/Glasgow News 1.
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
As the breeze buffeted the two flags on the pole outside Barren County Schools central office, the four members of the Board of Education — board member Joey Newberry was absent — along with Superintendent Bo Matthews discussed and approved a renewed non-exclusive lease agreement with the Barren County Fiscal Court, an offer of assistance from the Kentucky Education Technology System and prepared for the coming winter.
During the roughly hour-long meeting, which featured a lengthy agenda, the board members heard from Anthony Frazier, director of pupil personnel, as he relayed to them that the district had put forward a new non-exclusive lease for practice baseball fields located at two of the district’s elementary schools — Red Cross and Eastern elementaries.
According to Frazier, he, and Matthews, met with Barren County Judge-Executive Jamie Bewley Byrd on Friday, Nov. 3. He said the meeting was good and clarified which party had responsibility over what.
“We had a good meeting with the judge and some of the magistrates to kind of go over this lease and the ones we’ve had in the past,” Frazier said. “We’ve got it signed and sent to them.”
A comparison of the old and new lease reveals that only two sections were changed. The first being that North Jackson Elementary fields were excluded from the lease and the second is an auto renewal after 12 months unless the lease is terminated “with or without cause” by either party by a written 30-day notice.
“Thank you for working on that, I know we needed to clarify some things to get everyone on the same page,” board chair Shelly Groce said.
“It should provide good opportunities for our kids,” Frazier added.
After that was approved by the board, they listened as Scott Harper, director of secondary instruction, assessment and technology, explained the “KETS offer of assistance” that appeared under the action item portion of the agenda.
As explained by Harper and echoed by Matthews via email, the offer of assistance “is a program that provides additional funding for technology purchases to school districts.” The KETS program requires districts to match the funds they receive.
“For [the] Barren County School District, the first offer of assistance is $52,443, which means the district will receive and match the same amount for the KETS program,” Matthews said. “The funds will be used for operational technology costs, such as software, hardware, and networking.”
Harper also relayed to the board that the district was preparing for the colder, and possible snowy and/or icy, winter months by developing their Non-Traditional Instruction day, which are 10 days approved for weather related closures.
“As we get closer to winter, though the weather does not seem like November, we are making our plans for Non-Traditional Instruction, or NTI [so] we can say we’re ready on Dec. 1,” Harper said.
Harper said he will be getting the NTI information to specific schools within the next few days.
Other topics addressed during the meeting included:
Dick Doty, subbing in for Alliance Corporation Board Chair Tommy Gumm, providied construction updates. According to him, the baseball field press box now has a hard finish date scheduled for Feb. 16 “before the baseball season begins” with the art gallery being their “next area of activity.”
Joey Bunch, director of transportation, said five new school buses should be arriving before the end of this month with another arriving in December.
Harper explained how the Kentucky Department of Education got its figures in the Barren County School 2022-23 report card.
The next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 14.
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