The Provo City School Board provided a bond sale update at its meeting Tuesday and discussed the sale of bonds, updated its existing Chromebook policy and narrowed down the list of potential names for its new middle school.

According to Derek Anderson, business administrator for Provo City School District, the bonds to support the building of the district’s new middle school and the Wasatch Elementary School project are slated to be sold on Feb. 16.

The school board also narrowed down the number of suggested names and mascots for the new middle school slated to be built near Footprinter Park in Provo. After a survey was distributed to the public, the top four name suggestions selected by the board include Footprinter Middle School, Shoreline Middle School, Dry Creek Middle School and Horizon Middle School. The top mascot choices include the panthers, ducks, colts/mustangs and raptors.

These names will be included in another survey that will be distributed to the community for public input. The school will replace Dixon Middle School upon completion.

The board also carried a motion to approve policy 4202, which adjusts the fee a student could potentially be charged in the event that they damage a school-issued Chromebook.

This will be an update to the existing policy that parents committed to when their student was issued a computer at the beginning of the school year.

“What this policy is doing, it it’s widening the scope of if a Chromebook is damaged, this widens the scope of what we can charge,” Anderson said. “It lowers the minimum threshold but also opens up the threshold to the replacement value.”

The new policy decreases the minimum amount that a student could be charged for a damaged Chromebook to $30 for smaller fixes, and opens up the maximum fee a student could be charged to the full cost of the Chromebook, in the event the computer is damaged beyond repair.

“If, say, a key falls off and needs to be replaced, we can charge just a 30 dollar amount instead of the 40 dollar amount which was previously there,” Anderson said. “But now it also says that you know if a kid breaks the Chromebook then they would end up paying the replacement value, which is around 250 bucks, 300 dollars.”

Anderson clarified that students will not be fined for computer issues that are a result of wear and tear, but rather for preventable damage incurred to the Chromebooks.

“If the motherboard is going out or, you know, something like that then it’s just going bad,” Anderson said. “But you know if you have a shattered screen and a dent … then you know that’s kind of what ends up happening.”

Custodial staff need

It was also announced at the meeting that the Provo City School District is looking to fill 109 open sweeper and custodial positions at schools throughout the Provo area.

According to Mark Wheeler, the director of facilities at Provo City School District, custodial teams at many of the district’s schools are working very hard to make up for the fact that they are short-staffed.

“Westridge Elementary, it’s just under 70,000 square feet, over the past couple of weeks we’ve had one head custodian, one part-time person, that’s a lot of square footage to take care of by two people,” Wheeler said. “Centennial we’ve got 143,000 square feet plus… right now we have one head custodian, one assistant and three part-time people … that’s 28,000 square feet per person, that’s a lot of areas to cover every single day, and unfortunately they’re just not making it. It’s impossible to cover that much space with that few people.”

According to the post, “Most schools offer convenient work hours after school, Monday through Friday from 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm, allowing you to work and still have free time for homework and social life. Here’s a few details about the job:

• Positions are available for workers 14 years old and older
• Entry-level part-time and full-time contract positions are available
• Receive a 300 dollar signing bonus after one month of employment.”

For more information on open custodial positions or to apply, people can visit http://provo.applicantportal.com/job-category-list.php?cid=30.

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