The Fairbanks Board of Education has announced Fairbanks Middle and High School building will receive its new public address (PA) system in August.
As part of Monday’s board of education meeting, Superintendent Bob Humble said the PA system has been in the works since June and the new system should be done by August, before school starts. The board talked about the system in its April meeting. At that time, Humble said the building repair program, part of a five-year renovation plan, should be rolled out “over the next couple of months.”
“The problem is, in the middle and high school, we have two separate PA systems, so if an emergency were to happen, we wouldn’t be able to contact every classroom immediately,” he said. “Now, we’re able to talk to any classroom in either of the two buildings.”
Humble said the PA system was more than 35 years old and “didn’t really work.” He said the new PA system is integrated within the school’s phone system, allowing communication from the PA room to any individual classroom, or between two classrooms. He also said emergency calls on the PA system can also be sent to the nearby elementary school.
In April, the board approved of the proposal for Microman to provide and install the system for $42,600 and for Eubanks Electric to install wiring and conduits for $21,900.
Humble said the situation is relatively the same now, except Eubanks Electric had “more work than they anticipated.” He said Eubanks misquoted how much the project would cost, with the project requiring $10,000 more to finish it. However, Eubanks Electric donated the remaining $10,000 required to finish the project with labor and materials.
Also at the meeting, treasurer Aaron Johnson said the district ended its financial year “in good shape,” with next year’s budget being $12.5 million. He said the district will experience some “slight” and temporary deficit spending due to salary increases, new principal decisions and other factors.
Finally at the meeting, Humble said the high school cross country team has more students signing up for it than it has uniforms to give out. He said this is a good kind of “problem” to have, as now this means the school has to order new uniforms. He said any number of students can run in cross country, making it one of the sports at the school that doesn’t have a maximum participant threshold.