The Indian Lake Board of Education approved a new Bus Garage project that will change the layout of facilities at Indian Lake Schools.
The board accepted a resolution awarding Baumer Construction, Inc, a $2.9 million contract to build a new Bus Maintenance and Storage facility and Fuel Station project south of the middle school along County Road 91 and the southern drive onto campus. The current bus maintenance facility, located at the center of campus, is now too short to accommodate the size of modern buses.
Indian Lake Superintendent Dr. Rob Underwood explains, "What this will allow us to do is get those buses inside under cover, locked, and safely out of the weather." He continued, "After studying the financial impact of this for well over a year, we know this is a way to extend the life of the buses and the overall security on our campus."
Underwood says the bids for the project came in $1.3 million dollars under the original estimated cost. Building a new bus maintenance facility will open up the current garage to future projects and generate many more parking spaces close to the ILHS event entrance.
In addition, Dr. Underwood gave board members a report on Indian Lake Schools' State Report Card that was recently released. Indian Lake earned a 4-star rating, a slight slip from the past two years at 4.5 stars. State testing took place less than a month after the March 14th tornado ravaged the Indian Lake area, closed school for a week and displaced many students and their families. Dr. Underwood says he is more than satisfied with the state testing results, given the circumstances.
"The students actually took the assessments really shortly after the tornado hit our district. So for them be able to focus and be able to come back from such a challenging event and to still have a really solid performance on those state assessments, we just couldn't be any prouder."
Superintendent Underwood says teaching teams are still analyzing results to make improvements for this year.
Finally, the board accepted the upcoming retirement next summer of longtime Indian Lake Schools Treasurer Coleen Reprogle. She has served the district for decades and with her knowledge and experience, Dr. Underwood knows her position will be a challenge to fill.
"It's been such an awesome experience getting to work with her. I think there are very few people in the profession that work as hard as she does and give as much as she has given to this district."
Board members are planning a search process to find Reprogle's successor.
The next IL Board of Education meeting is Monday, October 21st at 6:30 pm in the Board Office.