HHS projects underway

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Photo: Hillsboro second and third graders are pictured being honored as “good apples” at Wednesday’s Hillsboro City Schools Board of Education meeting. Pictured, from left, are Delaney Gaines, Delayna Collins, Allie Roush, Emma Tinnel, Kayla Seeling, Addison Huff, Kate Holsted, Jaxon Alexander, Jasmine Patel, Logan Ritchie, Zach Burwinkle, Mary Jean McKenzie and Meredith Dietrick.

By Jeff Gilliland – [email protected]

Two building projects are underway and a third will start in the near future, superintendent Jim Smith reported at Wednesday’s Hillsboro City Schools Board of Education meeting.

Smith said concrete is already being poured at the new restroom/concession stand site located near the front, west side of the track/soccer complex. Because the soil is poor in that area, yet it’s where the new building needs to be located, it is being built on 24 concrete piers that original plans called for being drove five feet deep into bedrock beneath the soil. Smith said the pylons now need to be drove a little deeper, which will add about $5,000 to the cost of the project.

Work on the weight training/wrestling facility on the back, east side of the high school/middle school is still in the grading stages, Smith said. He added that some of the people working on that project are parking in a grassy area between the school and the roadway in front of where the new building will be located. The superintendent said that area might make a good location for a parking lot and/or basketball courts in the future. He said he’s been at other schools that went ahead and had an area like the one in question graveled and leveled while another project was underway.

The former basketball courts were removed to make room for the project, with the fencing, backboards and rims placed in storage.

“I believe we’re on target for the deadline of being in those buildings by the time school starts next fall,” Smith said.

The other project involves paving an access road at the elementary school that runs from the bus garage around behind the building. Smith said bids on that project should go out in the near future.

The board approved an $18,500 engineering contract with Cardinal Engineering for the access road project.

“It’s a very necessary thing at this point,” Smith said. “We’re running buses over it and it was never meant for that from a foundation and thickness standpoint.”

The board also approved an open enrollment policy for the 2016-17 school year. The policy says that Hillsboro is not eligible for intradistrict open enrollment, or the option of transferring between buildings in the same district, because there is only one building per grade level.

But the board approved an interdistrict policy, or transferring between different school districts, with the following restrictions:

• Open to all Ohio school districts;

• Application deadlines are April 1 through Sept. 30;

• Previous open enrollment students and their siblings will get first preference;

• Enrollment limitations will depend upon space at each grade level;

• Approval of special education students will depend on teacher limits and space.

Several students is grades 2-3 were honored by the board of being “good apples.” Their principal, Jacob Zink, said the students’ teachers are able to nominate one “good apple” each nine-week grading period and that the award is given to students who help other students in class, are friendly and cooperative with the teachers, and always give their best effort in all that they do every day.

The students honored were: Delaney Gaines, Delayna Collins, Allie Roush, Emma Tinnel, Kayla Seeling, Addison Huff, Kate Holsted, Jaxon Alexander, Jasmine Patel, Logan Ritchie, Zach Burwinkle, Mary Jean McKenzie and Meredith Dietrick.

“We have a lot of good students, but these are some of the best we have,” Zink said.

The board saw a presentation from the middle school robotics team of Colton Hunter, Tanner Warner, Blake Tira and Audie Vance. They recently competed in a regional competition where they received the Excellence Award and qualified for the state competition, where they finished 17th out of 25 teams in their first trip to the event.

Reach Jeff Gilliland at 937-402-2522 or on Twitter @13gillilandj.

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