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The Coffee County Board of Education has approved the purchase of STEM and Career Exploration education equipment as well as new classroom and office furniture during its regular meeting Feb. 13.

Board members voted 8-0 to approve the purchase of $212,702 of new Career Exploration equipment for Coffee County Middle School through Reletech of Nashville during the meeting.

The Board also approved the purchase of a new hands-on STEM lab equipment for the Raider Academy totaling $499,302 in an 8-0 vote.

The funding for both projects is through a $2.5 million Tennessee Innovative Schools Model grant board members voted unanimously to accept during its last meeting Dec. 12.

Richard Skipper, Career and Technical Education director, said during that meeting that Coffee County Schools have been approved to receive $1 million for use at Coffee County Central High School, $1 million for use at the Raider Academy and $500,000 for use at Coffee County Middle School.

The district only received one bid for each of the projects, which is due to them currently being considered “sole source.”

“Understand, when you start getting into this type of equipment there are very, very few companies that do this kind of thing and in this case, it is a sole source,” Director of Schools Charles Lawson said during the meeting.  “You will see that letter included at the end of it which explains why you don’t see like three bids. It is such an unusual item that is not actually possible in that scenario.”

Board member Larry Crabtree asked if the state agrees that the items are classified as “sole source.”

“I am just wanting to make sure that the state is in agreement with the single source,” Crabtree said before the vote.

Lawson said it does.

“What we have there satisfies accounting and auditing,” Lawson said. “It satisfies auditing requirements and we keep that available, so if there is ever a question why we don’t have three bids or that kind of thing we provide that as proof for the comptroller’s office.”

Board members also voted unanimously to approve new job descriptions for two new positions, a Career and Technical Education teacher as well as a STEM Technology (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) teacher.

Skipper said during the meeting that the positions were previously approved during the December Board meeting as part of the $2.5 million state grant.

Board members voted 7-1 to approve the purchase of new classroom and office furniture totaling $291,469.49 during the meeting.

Kelvin Shores, Coffee County Schools deputy director, said during the meeting that purchase includes furniture for both Hillsboro Elementary School, Central Office as well as whiteboards and tackboards for Coffee County Central High School, Hillsboro Elementary School and Coffee County Raider Academy.

“We have been working through our system of changing out old furniture that has been damaged and upgrading and improving what our students have,” Shores said.