Rockford Sun

The Harlem Community School District Board approved several proposed school improvements during a meeting held last month.

During the meeting, board members discussed a variety of purchases for their district. The first was six convection ovens, a convection steamer and a dish machine for the district's middle school, as well as a large Combi oven for the high school. The board voted to award the contract to Cooks Direct for a total of $196,650. The purchases are for general maintenance, as most of the new equipment is replacing older versions that no longer function as needed, although the new equipment is upgraded models of said old versions that will allow for some service expansions.

The next discussed purchase was of 13 Blue Bird school buses from Central States Bus Sales for a total of $1,737,100. The district had released a bid for the front-nose transit-style buses, but the best bid that they received would've been $40,000 over budget per bus. There was some concern over the chosen buses, as they are different from the ones that the district has used in the past and differ from the processes already set in place. 

"I'm still concerned, like, we've only used diesel," said Board member Kurt Thompson. "We have the supplies for diesel and the programs with diesel. There's a line that we can't get into and the costs are higher for diesel, but we can walk right up front and get as much gas as you want. That has to be kind looked at, and you've answered that. Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to look at some of the information that's come out. I don't see it as being a direct negative, but, and this goes for buses or computer systems or anything, it's just hard because we're in a system and then to deviate from that system. I know that this is going to be for five years and that lets us go back. So it is essentially a trial run and that's really on my mind as well. But it's a lot of money to try things out."

After some debate, the board chose to proceed with the new buses, agreeing that they could sell them after five years and recoup most of the costs.

The final expenditure was carried out using the district's ESSER II funds totaling $713,147. The agreement, which was made through Sourcewell Cooperative, was to have Imagine Nation provide and install a new playground after removing the current equipment. The move was considered an emergency purchase so that it could be performed on an advanced timeline, allowing the playground to be installed by Sept. 30, which is the deadline for spending ESSER funds. The move will also affect multiple campuses, with some having a full reinstallment and others only seeing partial renovations.