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Everything ready for students to return to classrooms at Uniontown
UNIONTOWN — USD 235 will begin a new school year next week with some physical upgrades and focuses on educational changes.
USD 235 Superintendent Bret Howard said classes begin Tuesday at West Bourbon Elementary School and Uniontown Junior Senior High School. Students, teachers and staff will head back to the classrooms that day following a week that includes inservice training and a district-wide meeting. The district has an enrollment of less than 600 students.
Some of the improvements in both school buildings are geared toward the district’s goals involving health and wellness and a clean environment.
At WBE, structural changes and cosmetic upgrades for the new school year include re-carpeting hallways and the library, new paint throughout the building, and new water bottle filling stations. Howard said the district was also able to purchase some new lunchroom tables for the school.
“One of the biggest things is they’ve installed some water fountains that have the water bottle filling stations,” Howard said. “We had a grant that helped pay for that.”
In May, the school board was notified the district had received a $20,000 check from Blue Cross Blue Shield as part of a Pathways to Healthy Kansas grant the Healthy Bourbon County Action team received in 2016.
Funds for WBE were used to purchase and install new water fountains with water bottle filling stations. UJSHS also received some funds which will be used for equipment and supplies to implement a modeling school wellness policy as a pathway for the grant. Through the grant, the district received new equipment for the weight room at the high school.
The water bottle filling stations feature digital displays that show the number of plastic water bottles not dumped in a landfill, Howard said.
Some classrooms at WBE also feature new carpeting, white board tables students can write and draw on, and ergonomic exercise ball chairs. Small upgrades in the school library were funded by a Walmart grant in 2016, WBE Principal Tyler Jackman said.
At the junior/senior high school building, new carpet has been installed in four classrooms and the high school office. Howard said inmates from the honor pod at the Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Center helped with some work this summer.