By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

The Alabaster City School System is planning to post school bus routes for the 2013-2014 school year within the next few weeks, according to officials.

During a July 16 Alabaster School Board meeting, Alabaster BOE Operations Coordinator Jeff Atkins said the “bus routes are done,” and said he is working to post route information to Alabasterschools.org in about two weeks or so.

“We are planning to do it the same way Shelby County does it and list the bus routes by street,” Atkins said.

Students will ride newly rebranded Alabaster City Schools buses during the upcoming school year. Atkins said about 30 former Shelby County School System buses have already been rebranded for Alabaster City Schools, and said all buses should be prepared “a week or two before school starts.”

Since Alabaster City Schools began working with the Transportation South company to rebrand the buses, school district officials have parked the updated buses in front of several city school campuses.

In other business during the meeting, the School Board:

-Approved a $38,733.83 bid from the Alabaster-based Sta-Dry company to apply a new waterproof roof on a portion of Thompson Intermediate School.

“One of the initial things identified by (the) Volkert (company) was an issue with a partial re-roofing at Thompson Intermediate School that was causing leaks,” said. Alabaster School Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers.

The re-roofing bid came in significantly lower than the $75,000 original projection, Vickers said.

-Announced TIS will be a Title 1 school for the upcoming school year. As a result, the school will receive a “significant amount” of federal funds, Vickers said.

Schools are eligible for Title 1 when a significant amount of students at the school are eligible for the free and reduced lunch program.

-Announced the district is working to set up a teacher service area at one of the schools to give teachers access to equipment such as large laminators, binding machines and letter punches.

Shelby County School System teachers currently are able to use such equipment at the Instructional Services Center off U.S. 31, but the Alabaster and Shelby County school systems are awaiting a decision from the state school superintendent on the building’s future ownership.