The Lawrence school board on Monday will consider approving a $142,393 expense to repair damages from a fire in a Lawrence High School locker room.
The fire happened during a school day in September. Staff members and students evacuated the building, and no injuries were reported.
District spokesperson Jake Potter had said the fire was small and contained to the designated girls’ locker room. Two students were arrested the next day in connection with the incident. Neither the district nor the fire department provided information about the cause of the fire.
Zipco Contracting Inc., a Kansas City-based water and fire damage restoration company, began cleanup directly after the incident and is now working on repairs, according to the item on Monday’s meeting agenda.
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The agenda item says the district must pay Zipco Contracting directly, but the district anticipates a reimbursement on the expenses incurred. The district’s property insurance policy has a $50,000 deductible per incident, so the insurance will likely end up covering the remaining $92,393.
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If approved, the payment to Zipco Contracting would come from the facilities and operations capital outlay fund.
The contract is on the board’s consent agenda, a list of items routinely approved in motion unless a board member or the superintendent pulls an item for discussion.
The board will also consider approving a $48,000 contract to replace the aging fire alarm system at Cordley Elementary School.
In other business:
• Continuation of enrollment report: The board on Monday will hear about elementary, middle and high school class sizes this year as part of an annual enrollment report.
James Polk, director of data and assessment for the district, said at the previous board meeting on Nov. 17 that the district points to fewer births and financial stress for the cause of its declining enrollment.
Polk dipped into data on elementary classroom sizes as of October, reporting that the average kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms on average have between 20 and 23 students. The largest elementary classroom — a fifth grade room — has 30 students, and there are a few with 28 and 27 each. The data did not include multigrade nor Montessori classrooms.
The presentation attached to Monday’s agenda is from the Nov. 17 meeting and does not add any information. Polk had said during that meeting that he planned to expand on classroom sizes at all grade levels on Monday.
No action is set to be taken following the report Monday.
The board will meet at 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 8 at district offices, 110 McDonald Drive.
Meetings are open to the public, livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel, youtube.com/@USD497, and broadcast on Midco channel 26. Full meeting agendas are available on BoardDocs, via go.boarddocs.com.
There is no public comment period on the agenda for Monday.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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