Board Elects President

LINCOLN — The school board met last week for their monthly meeting to discuss upcoming projects and reorganize after the election.

After a brief period of celebration for the summer school program, the board took the time to reorganize itself. The board swiftly and unanimously approved Kenneth Albright as the new president, with Ronnie Remington taking over as vice president and Connie Meyer as secretary.

Those three were joined by other sitting members Oleta Danforth, who served as the president prior to this meeting, and the newly elected Julie McConnell, who ran unopposed for her position.

Albright then took over to lead the meeting.

Superintendent Mary Ann Spears chimed in for the financial report, saying “We are doing very well. If you look at one report, we haven’t even used 80 percent of our budget for May. I just opened our largest bank statement ever last week. Our finances are very healthy, and we have a good building fund.”

Facilities were a large portion of the meeting, with Spears noting that work on the greenhouse was supposed to get started soon, and that the district had plans to replace tile at the elementary school over the summer.

Spears went on to note that architectural drawings for a remodel on the softball and baseball field were nearly finalized, with estimates showing the cost over $2 million.

The superintendent recommended it be put on hold for the next few years, saying, “Lots of schools are putting things on hold right now. It’s just not a good time to start construction projects.”

The only policy update this meeting came in the form of a non-discrimination in food service program, requiring the school to provide documents for non-English families in their native language. The board voted unanimously to implement this, and then voted to end the meeting.