Change order approved for track project

By Emily Ham (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Friday, October 9, 2009

NATCHEZ — The Natchez-Adams School Board of Trustees approved a change order for the Natchez High School track-refurbishing project.

The agenda handed out at Thursday’s meeting stated the board would be asked for its “approval to alter the previously board-approved track renovation plan and add and inch and a half of overlay of asphalt because of the discovery of deterioration below the track surface.”

The board voted to amend its June 11, 2009 decision after being presented with pictures of the track’s condition and explanations of the overlaying process.

Don McCracken, a spokesperson for the school board’s selected contractor, updated board members on the current state of the track and what his company found upon inspecting the area before beginning work.

“A number of patches were made over the course of many years,” McCracken said.

After assessing the damage and following up on the best recovery option for NHS’ track, McCracken said for $29, 101 the current area could be re-leveled and recovered.

McCracken said the option he presented would save the school board approximately $65,000.

The board also discussed providing driver’s education classes to home-schooled students who live in Adams County.

“I’d like to see driver’s education be open to all citizens of Adams County,” board member Harold Wayne Barnett said.

Barnett’s suggestion was prompted by the board policy revisions being considered and the absence of home-schooled Adams County students within the revision pertaining to driver’s education requirements.

Barnett suggested that home-schooled students would not fall within the guidelines created within the policy, and asked the terminology of the revision be reconsidered to make driver’s education classes available for all 14-year-old or above students within the county.

“We’re putting a policy in place that is saying driver’s education is not important,” Barnett said.

Barnett said allowing all 14-year-old high school students to take driver’s education classes, no matter where they attend school, is a way the school system can help keep the people of Adams County safe.

“The life we save might be the person in this very room,” Barnett said.

However, driver’s education classes provided by NHS can only accommodate 16 students per class, and the demand of the course exceeds its availability.

The board voted to table the policy pertaining to driver’s education until the next appointed meeting when NHS Principal Cleveland Moore could have a chance to collect and present information to the board.

The Natchez-Adams School District Board of Trustees will meet again at 4 p.m. Nov. 12.