School Board has hands full

The Gilroy Unified board of trustees will be busy tonight and Thursday with a number of decisions about the budget and the district’s newest school.
Board members will meet at 6:30 p.m. today to continue a study session on the budget that they began last month.
Items still left to discuss include staffing guidelines, and how many custodians should be working based on the square footage of the school.
The proposed staffing for grades four through six for next school year are 29 students to one teacher, which is also the average for this year. With class size reduction in kindergarten through third grades, the staffing ratio is already set at no more than 20 students per teacherk.
. The board will discuss items concerning Antonio Del Buono Elementary School
The school – Gilroy’s 10th elementary – is slated to open in July 2000 at the corner of Wren and Farrell streets. The board will decide
whether to award the bid for construction to Salinas-based H.A. Ecklin and Associates for $9.2 million.
The board already has awarded the bid for off-site work, including street improvements, to Watsonville-based Granite Construction for $477,799.
At the request of Trustee David Carpenter, the board also hopes to form a committee to start looking at sites where the district might build the next elementary school after Del Buono is completed.
The committee would be responsible for coordinating location decisions with the City of Gilroy’s General Plan, involving community members in the planning process, and investigating parcels of land that might be used for future schools.
Both meetings will be held in the district office, 7810 Arroyo Circle. The budget study session will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and the board’s regular meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.