By John R. Schirmer

Leader staff

The Nashville School Board voted Monday night to purchase equipment, furnishings and other items to be used in the district’s facilities improvement project.

Two of the purchases dealt with the cafeteria and media center under construction at Nashville Junior High School.

Board members accepted a bid of $177,680 from Supreme Fixture Co., Inc., of Little Rock for equipment to be used in the new cafeteria. Items include a walk-in freezer/cooler, freezer shelving, cooler shelving, 60-quart food mixer, modular gas tilting braising pan, gas convection oven and others.

Some of the equipment from the current NJHS kitchen will be taken to the cafeteria at the Sixth Street campus.

The board accepted a bid of about $39,000 from Missco Contract Sales for furniture in the new media center. The furnishings include newspaper rack, shelving, carrels, storage, desk and other items.

Two purchases were made for the 1,800-seat arena under construction at Nashville High School.

The board accepted a bid of $80,197 from Sports Floors, Inc., of Memphis for flooring on the basketball court. The flooring has ribs underneath to protect players and support the weight of equipment moved across the court.

“It’s safer and more logical to take the court that’s guaranteed not to tear up,” Superintendent Doug Graham said.

Sports Floors installed the flooring at the last two NCAA Final Fours, according to Graham.

The bid includes MFMA maple flooring, focus components with anchors, court markings, a center court logo and other items.

The board accepted a bid of $118,000 from Missco for arena seating. The facility will include 750 chairback seats, with colors to be decided. “Right now, the flavor of the day is orange and black or orange and gray,” Graham said.

The district received four bids on seating for the arena, and all were close. “There is a $4,000 difference top to bottom on the bids,” according to Graham.

The remainder of the seating will be bench seats.

Along with the construction-related purchases, the board also accepted a bid of $95,105 from CDIcomputers for 192 Dell laptops to be divided among high school, junior high, elementary and primary campuses.

“This is part of our original allotment of money for 1-1 computers for students,” Graham said.

The overall plan includes a laptop for each student at high school.

The initial purchase includes Dell laptops with Intel Core i3 – 2.53 Ghz processors, 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard drive, DVD-Rewriter, 15-inch display and wi-fi ready.

“Every time you open an education article, it’s talking about going away from textbooks,” Graham said. “We need to work our way into it.”

Many schools are using textbooks on laptops. Common Core national standards call for the use of computers and other forms of technology for student projects in all academic areas.

Graham said the laptops could arrive before Christmas.

They will be in carts to be shared among classes.

Total expenditures from Monday night’s meeting were about $540,000.

In other business at the board’s November meeting, members approved the purchase of land adjacent to and across the street from Wilson Park.

The land includes about eight-tenths of an acre beside the park, and another eight-tenths of an acre on the south side of the road from the park.

The district will buy the lots from Scott Lovelis for a total of $38,500.

“There’s an old adage among superintendents that when property opens up next to your school, you don’t let it go,” Graham said.

The board accepted the transfer of a Mineral Springs third grader into the Nashville district.

Board members approved after-school tutoring teachers for primary and high school. The primary list includes Julie Backus, Kayla Coulter, Allison McCauley, Sarah Rachel, Lakan Stanley, Megan Worthen and Shirley Wright. High school teachers include Allyson Tollett, Aleshia Erwin and Kristina Ward.

The teachers will be paid $30 per hour.

All board members were present Monday night, including president Monica Clark, Randy Elliott, Mark Canaday, Miles Mitchell and David Hilliard.