BY MIKE GERVAIS

With various school improvement projects scheduled for work throughout the coming school year, Purdy has amended its car pick-up and drop-off routes.

This year, parents and others picking kids up from school are being asked to enter onto Gabby Gibbons Drive on the east side of the campus. Bus pick-up at the main high school entry way, and car pick-up will be behind the elementary school. All traffic is being asked to exit Gabby Gibbons Drive west of the school campus.

High school students are also being asked to park their vehicles in the central office parking lot to help relieve congestion during the busy hour before and after school.

Purdy Superintendent Travis Graham said the move was made to accommodate the upcoming construction, which will see dual entry points built into the campus’s main entry ways, upgrades at the school cafeteria and improvements to the school science lab.

Graham said construction is expected to take approximately 330 days – and continue throughout the school year.

‘And of course this is happening at the most amazing time of the year,’ Graham said, referring to the beginning of the school year. The school board also approved a price increase for milk, raising it from 37 cents to 50 cents. The school board also discussed its tax levy for the coming year. Graham said the city’s assessed valuation in 2021 was $33,540,096. This year’s assessed valuation was set at $35,505,198. ‘This is positive,’ Graham said. ‘It shows the community is growing.’

Graham said with a tax levy of is $3.5415, the school will generate an estimated $69,266 in new