LOUDONVILLE — The Loudonville-Perrysville Exempted Village Schools board of education approved a resolution Monday allowing the district to start seeking bids on a new greenhouse for its FFA program.
The district’s current greenhouse was built in the 1980s and its wooden floors have started to rot away, letting insects and rodents through. FFA students and agriscience classes have “really struggled” to use the greenhouse over the past few years, said Kenny Libben, the vice president of Loudonville FFA Alumni and Supporters.
Even when Libben was an FFA student in the mid 2000s, the greenhouse had issues — so Libben and his organization approached the district’s FFA advisor, saying they wanted to help with a big project.
They settled on a new greenhouse, and the alumni group got to work raising money. Now, after “one or two” years, the group has raised over $200,000 and is ready to start work on the project, Libben said.
The current plan is for the district to buy the materials for the greenhouse and the alumni group will lay the foundation and construct the building before the start of the next school year.
The new greenhouse will be 64 x 48 feet — larger than the old greenhouse — have more usable square footage, a classroom space, and will be ADA compliant, Libben said.
At Monday’s meeting, board of education member David Hunter raised concerns that because the district is buying the materials, they would be required to go out to bid for everything else as well.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great idea, it’s a great thing. But I don’t want later on somebody to say, ‘Oh, by the way, you took ’em out to bid on that’ and now we got a problem,” Hunter said.
Hunter was also concerned the new greenhouse would conflict with local architect firm Garmann Miller’s district master plan the board recently hired them to create.
Board of education president John Carroll assured Hunter that Monday’s resolution was only to seek bids, and that they could hold off on publishing the bid information until they have answered his concerns.
“This allows us to get started on it if it works,” Carroll said.
After the board revised the language of the resolution to specify the district was purchasing a greenhouse kit, the motion passed unanimously.
In other business, the board laid off two midday bus drivers and approved the non-renewal of a slew of contracts for the district’s extracurricular coaches and staff.
Before every school year, the board lays off the bus drivers until they know how many preschoolers they’ll have, then they rehire them, Supt. Catherine Puster said.
The non-renewal of the extracurricular contracts is also a routine action that is necessary for the board to rehire the coaches and staff for the next year, she added.
