By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays USD 489 school board is set to vote on the sale of the former Washington School building at its meeting Monday night.

The district has purchased the Oak Park Medical Complex on 13th Street and is remodeling it for use by Early Childhood Connections, which is currently in the Washington building at 305 Main.

Overland Property Group Land Development has offered $500,000 to purchase the property. The company hopes to use the property to develop affordable housing.

The company also built Stonepost Apartments in Hays.

Matt Gillam, OPG vice president of development, told the school board in December the company would like to renovate the school, which opened in 1926, using federal low income housing tax credits administered by the Kansas Housing Resource Corporation.

If tax credits cannot be secured for the renovation, OPG will likely tear down the building.

OPG has developed other historical properties in the region. The company renovated the former Lee Hardware buildings into lofts in Salina and the Tabor Grand Hotel in Leadville, Colo.

The school district plans to complete the Oak Park Medical Complex renovations by June 30.

Best case scenario, construction would start at Washington school at the end of 2019 and into the first quarter of 2020, Gilliam said.

Computer study

The school district has completed a semester-long study on the use of Chromebooks. The study was requested by members of the school board.

Select classes at O’Loughlin, Hay Middle School and the Learning Center were involved in the study.

The schools used some software in the pilot study that would require additional fees if the Chromebooks were rolled out district-wide.

Teachers found having keyboards was an advantage, especially when the students were answering essay questions.

However, elementary teachers noted issues have occurred with annotating PDFs and having pages for notes, diagramming, graphic organizers and drawing pictures.

Middle school teachers provided some of the following feedback:

• Lack of world-facing camera complicated many learning goals.

• Using Office365 accounts was clunky, and added steps are frequent. Process is derailed due to constant prompting to integrate with Google Drive.

• Concern was expressed over the loss of instructional time due to device limitations.

Middle school students in the study were surveyed about the Chromebooks, and the majority said they preferred using the iPads. However, they liked having a keyboard for typing. They also said the Chromebook’s ability to access and submit files in Canvas was frustrating and time consuming.

The study concluded, “Many hurdles were encountered over the course of the semester. Several can be overcome, but at a large annual cost incurred by the district.”

Concern was also expressed about the number of professional hours that would be lost if the district converted to Chromebooks — 323 professional learning hours at an average of $40 per hour.

Fees

The school board will hear a report on summer school and driver’s education fees. Staff is recommending reducing driver’s education fees by $50 and keeping the summer school fees the same.

In other business, the board will:

• Vote on the 2017-18 audit report
• Vote on Hays High School curriculum changes
• Discuss the superintendent evaluation