Mehlville Superintendent Eric Knost fielded questions about the district’s auditorium project, a solar project and its One-to-One Open-Source Pilot Program at last week’s town-hall meeting.

Jim Murphy, Board of Education member Kathleen Eardley’s father, said while the auditorium is “a great thing for the school district,” he wanted to know how much it will cost to run it every year.

Though Knost did not know an exact amount, he said the cost is “insignificant” and would not require hiring additional staff.

“I haven’t said we need to hire a theater manager. I haven’t said we need to hire any additional custodial staff … I’d be very upfront about that if we would,” Knost told Murphy.

While discussing the auditorium, Knost addressed items he said he has heard “a little bit of rumbling about” — community support and where the auditorium funds came from.

“I’ve never had an overwhelming feel from the people I’ve engaged in conversation with — both recently as superintendent and prior — that the community’s against supporting curricular spaces for performing arts,” he said.

Referencing a recent letter to the editor in the Call, Knost said some people believe funds are being taken away from textbooks or classroom supplies, which is “simply not the case.” The funds were generated through refunding bond-like certificates of participation, or COPs.

Additionally, Knost said district officials are still in the due diligence phase of the project.

“(District critics) think the district says, ‘We’re going to do that,’ and then at all costs they do that — no matter what they find, no matter what changes, no matter what affects the decision,” Knost said, “and I said from the beginning … that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to explore this, do it the way we proposed we would do it and continue with the due diligence.”

Money is being spent on due diligence now, according to Knost, to save funds in the future.

“We use attorneys that cost us money to help us make good decisions …,” he said. “When people say, ‘Well, there you go. You already decided to move that auditorium’… I think, ‘Well, do you want me to keep it there and run our costs up like we’ve always been criticized in the past?’ Absolutely not.”

Switching topics, resident Donna Seidel asked Knost about the status of a solar energy project, which the superintendent presented to the board in December as part of a facilities plan.

The solar-project effort, according to Knost, was to install a 25-kilowatt system on a district building, which would create “significant savings” with a “pretty quick” return on investment.

One reason the district is interested in the project, according to Knost, is because of rebates and incentives. Ameren Missouri is offering a rebate with a $50,000 maximum, and there are also federal incentives, which, combined with the rebate, would result in “almost no cost” to the district.

“The problem is the federal component of that is not available to public schools, so that kind of halted it a little bit,” he said.

However, Knost said board President Venki Palamand and he have talked about the possibility of a leasing program, though the topic has not been presented to the board.

“They come in, they install, they take care of everything,” Knost said. “There’s a lease payment, and the lease payment is less than the amount you will save immediately and those savings will grow each year as rates from Ameren go up.”

Knost also was asked why new tennis courts are being constructed at Bernard Middle School rather than Oakville Senior High School, which has tennis courts.

Facilities are required to have eight courts to host a match and Oakville Senior High has four, according to Knost. The Oakville High campus also is landlocked. Roughly 13 of its 29 acres are unusable, and Knost also said Bernard Middle is situated in the middle of the district.

“… And the timing is right because $70,000 in (United States Tennis Association) Tennis in the Parks money is available to us to do that,” Knost said.

Knost also touched on the professional development, or PD, opportunity for teachers involved in the One-to-One Open-Source Pilot Program, which allows one laptop per student rather than textbooks.

He said the PD is designed to help teachers navigate through open-source materials.

“They have to make absolutely sure that every detail of what’s in that (open-source) resource is accurate, and that’s an overwhelming process,” Knost said. “There’s a lot of PD companies, even textbook companies, getting out in front of that… doing the research and legwork for educators, and that’s really what the PD is wrapped around.”

Roughly 25 people attended the town-hall meeting, the third of the school year. Knost expects to host three town-hall meetings in the 2012-2013 school year.