After presenting the idea to the Amarillo City Council earlier in February, officials with the city of Amarillo visited Monday evening’s regular meeting of the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees to speak on the possibility of a municipally-owned broadband internet network.
According to previous reports by the Amarillo Globe-News, the model city officials are exploring would have open access for Amarillo residents for essential services on the internet, including education, healthcare, social services and banking.
Other services, including watching movies or television on streaming platforms as well as gaming, would require a subscription, which officials hope would pay for those community members using the network solely for those essential services.
• May 28: Tascosa
District officials state that the North Heights Alternative School graduation ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m. May 25 or the morning of May 29. If there is inclement weather, make-up days at the stadium will be May 29-30.
David Bishop, assistant superintendent of high schools for the district, said while the district had set dates with the Amarillo Civic Center Complex for indoor ceremonies, civic center officials could not guarantee the ceremony, with it still being closed because of Trauma Service Area A continuing to be an area of high COVID-19 hospitalization rates.
“Our recommendation at this time is to hold the graduation ceremonies at Dick Bivins Stadium,” Bishop said. “It would be modified from what we did last year. We could open up capacity. Right now, at our last football game, we had 25% capacity. If we stayed at that, we would get six tickets per senior. If we went to 50% capacity, which we hope in May we could do that… we could go up
During Friday morning’s special meeting of the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees, the board unanimously approved the purchase of 3,401 replacement Chromebooks for students on the district’s elementary and middle school campuses.
Doug Loomis, the superintendent of the district, said the new laptops will replace the old devices which will not be able to update after September. This purchase was originally planned to replace 25% of the oldest devices at the elementary and middle school levels as part of a four-year refresh cycle.
The computers, including associated management licensing fees, will cost $1,122,330, Loomis said. But while district officials would normally bring this kind of purchase to the board later in the year, the potential for reimbursement from the state helped the district make the decision to pursue this decision now.
During the year s last regular meeting of the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees on Monday, members of the board and district officials looked forward, making plans on how COVID-19 could affect the district as a whole after the upcoming holiday break and throughout the spring semester.
As of Monday, the district is reporting a total of 1,956 COVID-19 cases, consisting of both staff and students since the first day of school Sept. 1. Out of the total, 1,246 are students and 710 are staff. The district’s fall semester officially ends Friday for the holiday break.
Amarillo ISD Superintendent Doug Loomis spoke about the difficulties the district has gone through during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, both in the spring and fall semesters of 2020.