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County School District to hold October auction

As Warren County School District gets ready to unload some equipment in an auction to be held at the old Pleasant Township Elementary School, it’s fielding some questions about the building itself.

The district will hold a public auction at 10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at the McKinley Avenue school building that has been used for storage for years.

Available will be vehicles including a 2005 dump truck with plow, 2006 light pick-up, 1999 box truck, and a tractor; some technology including 75-inch SmartTouch televisions, projectors; and others like an automotive lift, air compressors, and school furniture.

On Monday, Superintendent Amy Stewart informed the physical plant and facilities committee that there have been questions about the Pleasant school building.

“We have had two inquiries about Pleasant recently,” Stewart said. “The inquiries had to do with storage – a place to put equipment and materials.”

The district has had no success selling the property in the past, at least in part due to its residential zoning.

Stewart said the district could check on the possibilities for exceptions to the zoning. “The climate at the county may be different,” she said. “We may be able to have that conversation again.”

The district is still working through a sale of the old Sheffield Elementary School property.

A bid of $20,000 was made by Taylor Diversion Program of Tionesta. That bid was accepted by the board at the August meeting.

Broadband

The pandemic has reinforced the importance of students having internet access at home. The district may be sending surveys to residents in various areas of the county regarding their access to internet service.

As broadband initiative dollars help spread high-speed internet access, geography is proving to play a major role in cost.

“All miles are not equal,” Stewart said. “When you see them put out millions of dollars… they think they go a really long way. Not in our geography. The price per mile on fiber… it’s quite expensive.”

The district needs information from users in those miles to include with grant applications.

“We’re due to put out another survey,” she said.

Exactly how to phrase the survey is difficult. The district needs specific information – not “we have service, but it’s terrible,” she said.

In addition to the difficulty of stringing fiber in rural areas holding up progress, broadband initiatives are complex and relatively new.

The district was one of a relatively small number that asked for federal dollars to help with broadband. The grant dollars for hardware and software have been relatively easy to work out. “A lot of people bought… stuff,” Stewart said. “We bought stuff and wrote for broadband. Only a handful of districts wrote for that.”

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