The Griswold School District’s Board of Education received some welcomed news during a special meeting held Friday evening: the bid for the High School/Middle School re-roofing project came in roughly half of what the early estimates indicated. Prior to accepting the bid, a public hearing was held concerning the project, during which Superintendent Dana Kunze read a letter from officials with Estes Construction and FRK Architects with regard to their recommendations.

The firms, after having received a number of bids and completing a pre-contract award interview with the apparent low bidder for the project, recommended accepting a bid from the R.L. Craft Roofing Company, in Denison. Board President Steve Baier said he was very pleased with Craft’s bid of $669, 024, which was much less than the $1.2-million dollar anticipated cost of the project. The Board voted unanimously to accept the bid.

In other business, the Board approved the resignations of: Chris Elwood, from his teaching and coaching positions; Erin Amelien, from her teaching and coaching positions, and Gena Rush from her Para-professional position. And, after reviewing three parking lot redesign proposals from Bishop Engineering’s Joel Jackson, narrowed the design down to one, but made several changes and/or additions to the plan.

A final draft of the plan, included the changes, will be presented to the Board during a special “Electronic” meeting (conducted via conference call and e-mail), next Wednesday evening. Regardless of the final plan design, everyone on the Board and Jackson agreed, there will be a “six-week” learning curve, for everyone to get used to the new layout, once construction is complete.