The Shelbyville Central Schools board already agreed to fund 50% of a new set of marching band uniforms for Shelbyville High School.
On Wednesday at its April meeting, the board was presented with a prototype of the uniform, modeled by marching band member Nate Thurston (photo left).
The process of replacing 200 marching band uniforms is tedious and costly. Approximately 115 returning band members have been measured for new uniforms with the roughly 85 other uniforms to be a mixture of sizes.
The total cost is $100,000 with half needed to be raised by the band boosters. By law, the school board can only offer $50,000.
The band boosters have been working tirelessly to raise its $50,000 and got assistance from one anonymous donor who pledged $10,000.
At Wednesday’s meeting, three organizations donated a total of $5,000 to the cause. Ryobi Die Casting presented a check for $3,000 while Shelby Lodge No. 28 F&AM and the Shelbyville Police Department’s D.A.R.E. Program each pledged $1,000.
The goal is to have the uniforms ready to debut at Shelbyville High School’s first home football game on Aug. 27. And the uniforms will be on full display when the marching band travels to Walt Disney World to perform in two years.
If you are interested in making a donation, go to www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=J92JPHK6QA9TG or go to shelbyvillebands.membershiptoolkit.com.
In other business, the board approved overnight and out-of-state field trip requests for SHS girls varsity soccer team (Anderson University Team Camp, July 22-24), SHS girls basketball (St. Francis College D-One Tourney, June 13-15), SMS science students (Great Smoky Mountains in Tremont, Tennessee, February 2022), SMS eighth-grade students (Washington D.C, March 18-21, 2022), and SHS boys and girls cross country team (Starve Hollow, July 19-22).
“We have approved the (trips) for the summer. Parents are going to have to sign off on that extracurricular agreement if they have not already signed off on that,” said superintendent Mary Harper.
The school system is working on an option to test students for COVID-19 once they return from trips, especially students on trips closer to the start of the 2021-2022 school year.
Trip sponsors and administrators have been encouraged to communicate with parents of students going out of state about purchasing travel insurance in case trips are cancelled.
The board also approved Chartwells to continue providing cafeteria food services and agreed to change the October school board meeting from Oct. 20 to Oct. 13.
The board also approved the refinancing of 2011 bonds that would save the corporation $270,000.
