Board approves contracts, policy changes and calendar revision in unanimous voice votes
Loading...
Summary
The Queen Anne's County Board of Education approved multiple procurement contracts and policy actions, rescinded two outdated policies, and revised the 2025–26 school calendar to add three instructional days, all by voice vote during its March 4 open session.
The Queen Anne's County Board of Education on March 4 approved a series of contracts, personnel reports and policy changes in a sequence of voice votes.
The board approved routine agenda and minutes items and the human-resources report before taking a set of procurement and policy actions. Julie Hickey, coordinator of food services, asked the board to allow the district to "piggyback" on HPS's Gordon Food Service contract (contract No. 546) to purchase food and food-related products; staff projected a 5.5% reduction in food-product costs, "approximately $65,000 in cost savings in fiscal year '27," and said local produce purchases would continue. The board approved the piggyback arrangement; staff stated the fiscal impact would be $1,300,000 charged to the FY27 food-service budget.
Rob Watkins, chief financial officer, presented the RFP process for the district's required external audit (citing Education Article §5-109) and the audit-selection committee's recommendation to contract with UHY LLP of Salisbury for a five-year engagement covering fiscal years 2026–2030. Watkins said the fiscal impact is $245,000 (including about $48,000 for the FY26 audit). The board approved the RFP committee recommendation.
The board also approved internal capital-improvement transfers to reallocate contingencies and complete projects, and it awarded multiple facilities contracts after staff presentations. Daryl Barricka, supervisor of facilities and design, recommended awarding the Kennard Elementary roof replacement to Garland DBS (Apex as subcontractor) for $2,218,397 with funding from the Healthy School Facility Fund (55% state, 45% county CIP, contingent on county funding). The board approved that award. The board separately approved a contract award for interior door hardware at Bayside Elementary (base bid $162,000, 10% contingency for a total of $178,200) to address locks and latch sets using FY26 county CIP funds.
On policy matters, the board approved Policy 6.34 on promotion and retention for pre-K–grade 3 (subject to edits and reformatting) after two prior readings. The board also voted to rescind two older policies — Email Policy No. 210 and Policy No. 530 (use of inhalers/administering medication) — because their content is consolidated under other, existing policies. Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Schreckengost presented the rationale for those rescindings.
Finally, the board approved a revision to the 2025–26 school calendar to add three instructional days to meet the state’s 180-day requirement; the board set June 17, 2026, as the last day of instruction. Superintendent Kibler explained the change is needed because of seven missed days this year and described how the district plans to use the added teacher professional-development day.
All votes on the items above were taken by voice and recorded as "Aye" by board members; no roll-call tallies were read into the record.
Actions recorded at the March 4 meeting included approval of the agenda and minutes, approval of HR reports, approval of Policy 6.34 (promotion/retention), rescission of Policies 210 and 530, authorization to join the Gordon Food Service contract through HPS (contract 546) with an FY27 impact of $1.3 million, approval of the UHY LLP audit contract for five years, multiple CIP transfers, contract awards for Kennard roof replacement ($2,218,397) and Bayside interior door hardware ($178,200), and the revised school-year calendar making 06/17/2026 the last day of instruction.
The board did not record numeric roll-call tallies during the meeting; outcomes were announced by voice and are reflected above.
