Changes coming at HSCHS

Things are going to get “shook up” a little at Hot Springs County High School next fall with some changes Principal Scott Shoop reported to the School Board at their meeting last Thursday night.

One of the things that will change is the bell schedule for students.

In past years, high school students who wished to leave campus for lunch were out at various fast food places at the same time as most businesses were having their lunch hour, too. This sometimes created issues with students being tardy returning from lunch and employees at local businesses sometimes returning late from lunch.

To keep from overwhelming eating establishments during the traditional lunch hour for businesses, the high school will be having a different lunch period than before. Shoop hopes this will cut down on the tardies being recorded.

Another change coming down in the fall revolves around advisory period.

Currently, students must all take the advisory period, but next fall students in academic good standing, with no tardies or other school related issues will have the option to skip advisory.

However, if a student is absent, they must attend advisory period the following day.

While it won’t affect all grade levels, it has been decided that freshmen will begin school a day earlier than their upper-classmen counterparts. This will give the incoming freshmen a chance to get settled in the high school environment.

Shoop would like to see the elimination of the community service requirement for future graduates.

As it is now, the students are very negative about having to perform a certain number of community service hours in order to graduate and it’s sometimes difficult to determine what is or is not considered community service.

Instead, Shoop is proposing making it a graduation recognition based item. For example, students who complete a certain number of community service hours would wear a neck cord at graduation recognizing their accomplishment.

Another item to come before the board was the awarding of the paving bid for the district this summer.

Several bids were received and Engineering Associates reviewed each one to ensure all the items within the proposed contract were covered in the bids.

The low bidder on the project was Big Horn Redi Mix.

A complaint has already been brought forward by the attorney for the second lowest bidder, Wayne Coleman Construction.

According to their attorney, Big Horn Redi Mix hand delivered their bid, which was not in a sealed envelope. Wayne Coleman Construction feels this gave an advantage to Big Horn Redi Mix as other bidders did not have the opportunity to deliver their bids in person.

Wording in the bid packet states the district may “reserve the right to waive all formalities” which the board feels covers hand delivery over sealed bid.

There is a $6,000 difference between the two bids and some members of the board wondered if that $6,000 difference was worth the price of an envelope.

The board moved to accept the bid from Big Horn Redi Mix pending a review from the district’s attorney regarding the issue.