On Monday, Fort Dodge Senior High Principal Stacy Laird asked the School Board for permission to use $16,900 from the building’s budget to purchase a dozen vape sensors to be placed in the school’s most trafficked bathrooms.

“These environmental detectors actually have the ability to detect vapors … it will send messages to whoever we have programmed in, letting us know that there’s something going on in the bathroom that we need to go check,” Laird said.

The board approved the purchase from Verkada Environmental Detectors, of San Mateo, California, which includes 12 sensors (two for each of the six bathrooms) and a five-year licensing agreement.

Laird also received a quote from ACP CreativIT, of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, for $14,739. However, ACP’s quote only included one year of licensing.

The board heard a presentation from Webster County Sheriff Luke Fleener and Fort Dodge Police Capt. Dennis Quinn about the standard response protocol the schools and law enforcement follow in the event of a crisis on a school’s campus.

“The good news is we’ve had this partnership in place for the last six years,” Fleener said. “Thankfully it’s never been needed.”

The goal of the protocol, he said, is to get everyone — law enforcement, students, staff, parents, administrators, community members — on the same page in the event of a crisis and use the same terminology to avoid confusion with terms like “lock out” versus “lock down” and other situations.

Fleener said he and the FDPD conduct security training and drills with district staff regularly.

The cost of the renovations being done at Cooper Elementary School has increased slightly. The school board approved a $109,000 change order on Monday night. Most of that expense — about $104,700 of it — was to replace several classroom fixtures that weren’t initially part of the project, including whiteboards, cabinets, sinks and faucets, said Ryan Utley, district director of buildings and grounds.

The school planned to reuse existing white boards, but when contractors began to widen the classroom doors, they had to cut into the white boards — which were just laminate white board over the old chalkboards.

Utley also said the district planned to reuse the existing cabinetry in the classrooms, but found that asbestos tiling was underneath and would need to be abated if they ever decided to take those cabinets out. He said they decided to just take those cabinets out and remove the asbestos tiling along with the rest of the asbestos abatement that is part of the project.

The Cooper renovation project is being funded through the district’s share of COVID relief funds, with the district’s physical plant and equipment levy fund covering a small amount.

The wheelchair lift in Cooper is also going to be replaced during this project. The board approved a $15,195 bid from Wheelchair Dynamics, of Fort Dodge, to replace the existing wheelchair lift that goes from the main level of the building down to the gymnasium area.

“It’s close to 25 years old and actually came out of the old Fair Oaks, so it’s just in need of replacement,” Utley said.

He added that two companies evaluated the lift and estimated it might have two to three years’ use left, but because of the flooring replacement already being done with this project, he decided now would be a good time to replace it.

Utley also received a bid from Access Elevator and Lifts, of Des Moines, for $17,450.

The board also received an update from a team of students at Butler Elementary School who went on a “crusade” to bring a water bottle filling station to the fourth- and fifth-grade hallway at the school.

In early March, the group presented its project to the board and planned to sell bracelets and water bottles to fund the $1,600 needed for the appliance.

Group member Emersyn Lara, a fifth-grader, told the board on Monday night that they have exceeded their funding goal by $300.

“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do,” she said.

The water station has been ordered and the students — Lara, as well as fifth-graders Ray’Zaria Parker, Ava Potter and Brooklyn Gilliland — will work together to decide what to do with the extra money that would still benefit the school community, Principal Jessica Kruckenberg said.

Kruckenberg said they hope the water station will be installed before the end of the school year, so the students can use it for a few weeks before they leave for the summer and move on to middle school.