Plans to build a new elementary school on the north side of Arlington and the east side of Milroy moved forward Tuesday evening following action by the Rush County Schools Board of Trustees.

After reviewing plans and posing questions to the project manager and an architect the board voted to authorize the acceptance of bids for site preparation work.

“At this point in time the building project is progressing forward. We are going to take bids on our site preparation package for both our Arlington site and the Milroy site,” superintendent of schools Dr. John Williams said. “We’re doing this so we can take advantage of, hopefully, good weather so that ground preparation can move forward. We’ve lost some time in the project’s timeline because of the length of time it took to get approval so we’re trying to make up some of that time by moving forward with this plan.”

Dr. Williams anticipates the board reviewing site preparation bids at its Aug. 5 meeting and selecting a contractor at that time, as well as deciding to authorize the needed authority to ask for bids for the rest of the construction involved with the effort.

The board also heard a presentation regarding the possibility of utilizing geothermal technology and systems to heat and cool the new schools once construction has been completed.

“I’m pretty pleased to see the cost of the geothermal options for heating and cooling that were presented,” Dr. Williams said. “I think there’s some very positive things that could come of that.”

The board approved a motion to have a 400-foot test well drilled at both the Arlington and Milroy sites to see if a geothermal system is feasible at those locations.

A decision on whether or not to proceed with geothermal systems will be made after assorted data has been collected and results from the test wells made known.

In addition, the board authorized the architect involved to approach the Rush County Drainage Board to seek that panel’s approval of plans to manage storm water and deal with it in keeping with Indiana code.

For more on Tuesday night’s school board meeting, including an overview of the personnel report that was approved, see Thursday’s Rushville Republican.

Kevin L. Green can be contacted at (765) 932-2222 ext. 108 or via e-mail at kevin.green@indianamediagroup.com. Add a comment to this story at www.rushvillerepublican.com.