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Warsaw Community High School will have new softball fields next year, with a new track to follow, according to information presented at Monday's school board meeting.
The board gave Greg Schroeder, Warsaw Community Schools' director of buildings and grounds, permission to advertise for bids to move the softball diamonds from their current location north of the high school to an area south of WCHS and behind Edgewood Middle School.
Soccer fields will eventually be built next to the new softball area, Schroeder said.
The board specified that the softball fields be built and usable before work is started on the soccer fields or the proposed track, which will be northwest of the school, where the softball fields are now.
The board also emphasized that the women's softball field would be no different than the men's.
The new track is being proposed, WCS Superintendent Dr. Lee Harman said, because "we've been concerned with the lack of an outdoor physical development area at the high school, especially a track."
High school athletes now use the track at Lakeview Middle School.
WCS business manager Rande Thorpe said today that the track is being planned to eventually include a football field or stadium.
"You have to determine before you build the track what's going to be inside," he said. "The plans are eventually to have football here."
The plans for the track were approved four or five years ago, he said. No timeline has been determined for developments beyond the track.
Schroeder said the estimated cost for the first phase of the project, moving the softball fields, is approximately $100,000 to $125,000, with completion expected for the 2001 season.
The school board also approved buying six new 66-passenger school buses from Midwest Transportation Equipment Co., but that decision was not without controversy.
Ed Kerlin of Kerlin Bus Sales, Silver Lake, contested the recommendation of transportation director Della Swain that the board buy the International buses from Midwest Transportation.
Kerlin submitted two bids, one for Navistar buses similar to those bid by Midwest Transportation, and one for Freightliner buses. The bid for Navistar buses was for $334,334, or $27,384 more than Midwest's.
Kerlin also bid $305,480 for Freightliner buses, a bid $1,470 lower than Midwest's. However, Swain said, the bid specifications were for buses similar to those the school corporation already has, wxhich would allow the mechanics to use the same equipment and interchangeable parts. Freightliner buses, she said, were not the same.
Asking the board to hold off on deciding whose buses to buy, Kerlin said, "If you people would postpone ... and give us a chance to show you what we want to show, there'll be no problem."
The board did not postpone, and Kerlin left immediately after the vote to accept Midwest's bid.
In other business:
• Thorpe said the 2000 tax rate for WCS was approved by the state at $4.80. Last year's rate was $4.769, he said, "so in essence we have a ... very close to flat rate for Warsaw Community Schools for 2000."
• The board approved advertising for bids to finish the air conditioning upgrade at Claypool Elementary and to begin the first half of the air conditioning upgrade at Edgewood Middle School.
• Dennis Duncan, principal of Jefferson Elementary, gave a report on "Four-Block," a new way of teaching reading to first- and second-graders. The program uses a combination of teaching techniques, including guided reading, phonics, writing, and self-selected reading.
• In a special meeting preceding the regular meeting, the board re-elected Craig Allebach as board president, Charles Sauders as vice president and Roy Szymanski as secretary.
• Harman announced that the board seats for District 3 (Dan Robinson), District 4 (Sauders) and District 6 (Allebach) will be up for election in the fall, with the current members' terms to expire Dec. 31.
• Harman also said WCS enrollment as of Monday was 6,315 students, which was approximately 50 more than this time last year.
School board members are: Allebach, Sauders, Robinson, Szymanski, Brad Brail, Larry Chamberlain and Cathy Folk.
