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Leesburg Elementary School will have a new parking lot at the start of the next school year, according to the Warsaw school board Monday.
The board voted to accept Cripe Excavating's bid of $57,167 build a 20,000-square-foot parking lot with curb, replace a sidewalk and repave the existing parking lot.
Not included in Cripe's bid but added onto the project by the board was additional parking lot lighting for $4,700.
Greg Schroeder, director of buildings and grounds for Warsaw Community Schools, said the project will begin as soon as school is over for this year and should be completed in approximately 30 days.
The school board also was told by Washington Elementary principal Tom Ray that Washington's fourth- and fifth-grade Destinations Imagination team (formerly known as Odyssey of the Mind) recently won the state competition. They will travel to Iowa in late May to compete for the national championship.
Team members are: Mallory Deardorff, Courtney Ogle, Blaine Allen, Travis Kempton, Andrew Morris, Kyle Messmore and Alex VanDuyne.
In other business:
• The board heard preliminary reports on summer school and textbook adoption. Proposed summer school sessions are: high school, session 1, June 9 to July 6; session 2, July 6 to July 28; elementary, middle school and remedial, July 26 to Aug. 11.
Textbooks scheduled to be adopted this year are in the "miscellaneous" category, including music, art, agriculture, family and consumer sciences, business and industrial technology.
The proposed books will be on display in the lobby of the administration building and can be examined by the public.
The board will vote on the adoption of the summer school schedule and courses and on the textbook adoption at the May 8 meeting.
• The board approved the calendar for the 2000-01 school year. The year will begin for students Aug. 22 and end June 5. Christmas break will be from Dec. 21 to Jan. 3, with spring break from April 2 to April 9.
• The board approved a transfer of property with Grace College. The small parcels of property are near Jefferson Elementary and will, according to school superintendent Dr. Lee Harman, provide "an improvement in terms of traffic flow and safety." He also stressed that no money was exchanged between Grace and WCS.
School board members are: Craig Allebach, president; Charles Sauders, Dan Robinson, Brad Brail, Roy Szymanski, Larry Chamberlain and Cathy Folk.
The board meets at the administration building at 7 p.m. on the second Monday of each month.
