PRC board gets updates on admin retreat and construction

Alan Lumpkin used his superintendent update to tell the board about the district administration’s annual three day summer conference. Lumpkin told the board that the team heard from outside speakers who facilitated conversations about building positive student relationships, building positive employee relationships, decision making, delegating tasks, employee recruitment, and conflict resolution.

“There was a lot of good information and activities this week and we all grew this week individually and as a team, “ Lumpkin shared.

Lumpkin said the team developed the Blue Devil Code that will deal with character education for the students and came out of the teacher advisories throughout the school year. The four characteristics that make up the code are respect, honesty, responsibility, and perseverance and the team is excited about using these in working with the students in the coming school year.

Warren Bowen, of New Path Strategy Consultants, who has been working with the district since the beginning of assessing the school district to the present construction phases, gave the board an update on the construction for the district from the bond money passed last year. Bowen said things are really going well and there have not been any issues yet.

Bowen (pictured) said that he and Operations Manager/Finance Director T.J. Burleson have been working on bringing down the cost of planned multi-purpose room. Bowen said the cost number is now at $6,167,000, under the targeted number of $6.5 million. One area that Bowen discussed was furniture for the facilities being built.

Bowen said the district has the ability to buy direct, and by doing this, there will be cost savings instead of paying two or three markups which will cost the district more money. Bowen said that he and Burleson traveled to New Jersey to a factory to observe the manufacturing process of the furniture and both came away impress with the way the vendor created their product.