During the Feb. 13 School Board meeting, one of the agenda items was in regards to bids received for the district’s door lock project.
Business Administrator, Lisa McKenney, explained that in 2022, they received funding for some security projects, and paid for access controls on doors, and door sounders, and some of the door lock project, but didn’t have enough funds to do the full project so they moved forward with a warrant article.
“The Londonderry School District was granted funds from the NH Department of Education’s Security for Education (SAFE) Grant which included funding from the Public School Infrastructure Fund, as well as federal funding from the Covid-19 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA),” McKenney wrote in a memo. “Londonderry’s total allocation was $560,200 which included funding for additional access control on perimeter doors, classroom door locks, and door hold open sounders for all schools in the District.”
Originally when they went out to bid, McKenney explained that they only received two bids, and were concerned with the large differences in pricing, and also the possibility that they wouldn’t be able to get the work done in time, so they put it out for bid again.
In the second round of bids, they received three bids and decided to go with One Source Security for a total of $563,032.
“The SAFE grant has $377,076 of funds available to finance this project,” McKenney wrote. “The balance of $185,956 will be funded from the Security Article approved at the March 2023 voting session.”
McKenney explained that the project will “provide a global lockdown solution for all of our schools. It will tie into our emergency alert buttons to provide enhanced security and safety for our students and staff.”
McKenney said they will still have approximately $100,000 left from the Security Warrant Article, and it will be decided on how to spend the rest as things progress.
The School Board approved the bid request.
Also during the meeting, the School Board received an update regarding the district’s strategic plan.
“Our current Strategic Plan for the School District sunsets at the end of this School Year,” Superintendent, Dan Black, said. “As a school system we intend to produce an updated five-year plan from 2024-29 that articulates the major work of our school system for our students and the community by next fall.”
Black said the plan is for the administration to work with staff “to map out potential priorities in the updated Strategic Plan over the spring of this school year. That brainstorming will lead to more detailed work over the summer.”
In addition, Black said they hope to use some board meetings during the spring and summer to “gather community feedback and input on potential priorities and also gauge the School Board’s priorities as well.”
“Looking at the calendar we would propose capturing community feedback at least at the April 16 2024 and May 21 2024 School Board meetings,” Black wrote.
In July, during the board meeting Black said the district “could have a draft of the upcoming priorities that could be included in the 2024-2029 Strategic Plan for comment and feedback.”
He said they plan on having the updated Strategic Plan by October, in order for the School Board to review it.