The Lawrence school board on Monday will consider bids totaling about $4.16 million to ready the former Centennial Elementary School building to serve as a new flexible high school option.

Choice Campus at Centennial will open in August with one main goal: getting Lawrence high schoolers to graduate, one way or another, Lawrence school district Superintendent Jeanice Swift said. The program will be available to students looking for an adaptable learning environment. (Read more in this article from January.)

The program will be housed at Centennial, 2145 Louisiana St.

The district closed the school to elementary students in May 2003. The building housed Lawrence Virtual School at one point in the aftermath; since then, it’s partly been a practice site with batting cages for the Lawrence High School baseball program as well as other athletics.

The board has three items to consider on its consent agenda for Monday’s meeting — a list of items that are generally considered routine and are approved with one motion, unless a board member or the superintendent asks to pull something for discussion — related to the work at Centennial:

• A maximum authorization of about $3.5 million to Centric Projects LLC, for work including “interior renovations consisting of interior finish improvements, door replacements, interior wall reconfiguration, and fire separation upgrades,” according to the agenda.

“The scope of work includes, but is not limited to, selective demolition; general construction; and associated mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection work required to support the planned renovations. Exterior improvements include construction of a new enclosed vestibule, a new canopy addition, and installation of sun-shading devices.” It was the lowest bid the district received for the work.

• An estimated $625,828 bid from Meridian Roofing Solutions to replace the roof. It was also the lowest bid the district received.

• A bid of $28,170 for Norton and Schmidt Consulting Engineers LLC for construction administrative services.

The board previously approved a $211,200 proposal from ACI Boland Architects for planning and development of the campus. Funds for the construction would all come from capital outlay funds, which can’t be used for salaries.

In other business:

• The board will hear from Swift an update on “enhancements.”

Previous enhancements Swift has brought to the board have included adding preschool classrooms at four elementary schools, the ParentSquare messaging tool the district now uses to consolidate communications, and bringing MacBook laptops back to Lawrence’s high school students.

• This is set to be the sixth meeting in a row with no general public comment period. The board has not heard in-person public comment since Nov. 17.

Meeting info

The board meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Monday, March 9 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.

See the full meeting agenda at this link. See ways to contact the school board at lawrencekstimes.com/contact-usd497bd.

This post is by the Lawrence Times news team.

If you have news tips, questions, comments, concerns, compliments or corrections for our team, please reach out and let us know what’s on your mind. Email us at Hello@LawrenceKSTimes.com (don’t forget the KS!), or find more contact info and a quick contact form at LawrenceKSTimes.com/contact.

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