The Lawrence school board gave the district administration the go-ahead to explore what it will take to build press boxes at both Lawrence High School and Free State High School at their special business meeting Monday night.

The first press box plan listed the estimated cost for LHS at $370,000, which included $40,000 for a crane to lift a pre-fabricated building onto stilts. The latest idea would include four brick walls, which would look similar to the bleachers, and would be built on-site. It would also include storage beneath the press box and an elevator to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This latest plan would cost closer to $270,000.

“This is just getting drawn up today so we don’t have bids,” said Frank Harwood, the district’s chief operations officer. “We’re going to at least approach the (current) contractors who are doing the contracts as an option with a change order.”

By completing a change order instead of the usual bid process, the work could potentially be done faster. But getting outside bids isn’t out of the question.

“We’ll sacrifice the time it takes to get a better price,” Harwood said.

Goal setting

The board met for three hours Monday afternoon to conduct a goal-setting session. Superintendent Rick Doll had each board member compile ideas they would like to discuss, ranging from staff development and facilities to school configuration and technology.

“We would have the four to seven big ideas and then you would turn us loose to go back with staff and put all of the benchmarks in defining that,” Doll said.

The board will get information on some of the topics they discussed at future meetings.

The board will not meet Aug. 24. Its next meeting will be Sept. 14.