Center Grove getting new signs, screens

Event announcements, registration deadlines, student honors, instant replays of Center Grove football plays and potentially advertisements will soon be much more visible to students, staff, parents and residents.

The Center Grove school board approved spending more than $900,000 from money left from the construction of the new Walnut Grove Elementary School on new digital signs at each school, a message center outside the high school football stadium, a new video scoreboard inside the stadium and an LED screen that can be used by classes and clubs inside the high school.

School officials said their goal is to better communicate with parents and the community, but that the new school signs could also potentially be used for advertisements to bring in more revenue, Center Grove Superintendent Richard Arkanoff said.

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Their hope is to have the new items installed by the start of the school year, Arkanoff said.

The single most expensive item is a new $357,000 video scoreboard inside the football stadium to replace the current video scoreboard that was installed in 2012. The new video scoreboard, which can show instant replays and broadcast the games, is nearly five times larger than the video board used for the last six seasons.

The new scoreboard is needed because the expansion of the bleachers completed in 2016 puts spectators farther away, which makes the board hard to see, Center Grove Schools spokeswoman Stacy Conrad said.

The new scoreboard will be 17 feet tall and 30 feet wide. The current scoreboard is 12-feet-by-9-feet.

Last year, school board members decided not to move forward with a proposed five-year lease to purchase a new 19-feet-by-25-feet LED monitor at a cost of $298,925.

Outside the football stadium, an additional outdoor message board will be added, which will face the student parking lot, an idea Arkanoff got when he attended a band competition at Decatur Central High School in Marion County, he said.

The $88,000 message center, which will be just under 8 feet tall and nearly 24 feet wide, can be used to communicate upcoming events and other messages with the high school’s 2,500 students and 200 staff members, in addition to the 4,000 to 6,000 community members who attend football games, Arkanoff said.

Smaller signs are going up at each of the other schools.

Whether the new signs outside of each of the school buildings will have advertisements has not been decided yet, but if so, they would follow the school district’s current policy on advertising, such as what is used inside the high school football stadium, Arkanoff said.

The main goal of the new signs outside of schools is not for advertising, but instead to be able to communicate with parents and the community, Arkanoff said. The new signs will cost nearly $313,000 in total.

“We are really excited to be able to push out messages from the district level and building level,” he said.

For example, currently none of the elementary schools have digital signs, so each elementary school posts signs letting parents know the dates of kindergarten registration. But with the new signs, that information could easily be displayed, with the same message and same format at each of the elementary schools, Conrad said.

The signs could also be used to let people know about schoolwide events, to get out information during an emergency or for everyday communications, Arkanoff said.

Both middle schools and high school have electronic signs, but the new signs will be larger with more room for additional information. The new signs at the elementary and middle schools will be just under 4 feet tall and about 8 feet wide. The high school sign will be larger, at just under 5 feet tall and 12 feet wide, according to the contract approved with South Dakota-based Daktronics.

In addition to the outdoor signs, the school board also paid $147,000 for a new LED screen that will be used inside the high school.

Other schools, including in Carmel and Avon, have a similar wall display that can be used for multiple purposes, from classes to performances, Arkanoff said.

Classes could use the screen for distance learning, such as if students are observing a surgery. Having a larger screen with a better image really brings that video to life for students, he said.

In addition, the display is portable and can be divided into smaller screens, allowing it to be used by school groups, such as show choir or band, he said.

“This enhances a lot of what we do, from performance to academics,” he said.

School officials have not yet decided whether to allow advertisements on the new outdoor signs, but do plan to have those discussions, he said.

Money collected from those advertisements would either go into the general fund, to pay for expenses such as teacher salaries and classroom supplies, or back into the capital projects fund, since that is where the money to buy and install the screens and signs is coming from, Arkanoff said.

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Center Grove schools is spending more than $900,000 on outdoor signs, a new video scoreboard and a new LED screen. Here is a look at what Center Grove purchased:

Video scoreboard

Cost: $357,021

Size: 17-feet-2-inches-by-30-feet-4-inches

Use: Replacing smaller video scoreboard inside the high school football stadium

Digital signs

Cost: $312,762

Size: 7 at 3-feet-8-inches-by-8-feet-1-inch; 1 at 4-feet-8-inches-by-12-feet

Use: New outdoor electronic signs outside of each school building

New LED screen

Cost: $147,699

Size: 13 panels at 1.97-feet-by-7.87-feet

Use: Performances, such as for show choir or band, and classes, such as for observing surgical procedures

Electronic message center

Cost: $88,909

Size: 7-feet-10-inches-by-23-feet-11-inches

Use: Display messages to students, staff and community members in the high school student parking lot, outside of the football stadium

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