Sunday Night's Open House

My "tour" group last night had some amazing questions, which I thought I would share on my Blog plus other questions I have been hearing.  Enjoy and feel free to ask anything I may have missed.

Why does this project need to be done now?

It has been 43 years since Central last passed a bond.  One could argue there is never a good time to increase taxes, so when is a good time to do a project like this?  The longer we wait to address the needs of our K-12 building, the more the cost goes up.  So while $6.75 million is a lot of money, that number will be higher next year and even higher the year after.  Meanwhile, the problems with our building are not going away and we simply cannot fix them without a bond.

What is unsafe about our current building?

·      Currently we are using three classrooms (two special education rooms and one drafting room) that are unsafe for our students due to accessibility issues and having only one exit.  Without this remodel, we will have to continue using those classrooms. 

·      The entrances to our K-12 building are unsecured.  With recent news of child abductions (Henry county) and another shooting (Coral Ridge Mall), we should be proactively working to make our kids safe.  With the remodel, we will have secure entrances and know exactly who is in our building and when.

·      Our K-12 building currently does not have a tornado safe room.  The new construction will be built tornado safe.

What about Clayton Ridge and their bond failing?

Two major differences between Clayton Ridge and Central: 1) The Central School Board voted 100% in favor of this project; the Clayton Ridge School Board did not.  2) We have one building for our kids, Clayton Ridge has two.  If we still had Volga and I said we were putting $6.75 million into Elkader and doing nothing with Volga, that would be a hard vote to get passed.  This is a focused investment towards making necessary improvements to the only building we have.

What is being done in each phase?

Phase one includes the following:

·      Turning the HS media center into a new commons area and cafeteria/kitchen.

·      Eliminate unsafe special education classrooms and remodel two new special education classrooms.

·      Remodel of science rooms and labs including new greenhouse.

·      New concession stand.

·      New guidance counselor office and conference room.

·      New handicap accessible restrooms.

·      New elementary music rooms and music storage.

·      New 6^th grade classroom.

·      Remodel district office to include high school offices.

·      New elementary office, which includes new nurse’s area.

·      Secure elementary entrance on Davis Street.

·      Secure middle school/high school entrance on North First Street.

Phase two includes the following:

·      Total tear down of kitchen, middle school locker rooms, weight room, wrestling room, and cardio room.

·      Rebuild all new middle school locker rooms, weight room, aerobics room, multi-purpose room, elementary restrooms, scaled-up classroom, high school restrooms, and high school media center.

·      New elevator to address accessibility concerns.

·      Remodel the career and technical education area (shop).

New mechanical including replacing our boilers will be done in all phases.  Depending on how quickly we can free up space, will make the difference on how fast this project can be completed.  Estimations are 2 or 3 years to complete the project.

Why don’t we build a new school?

The facilities committee looked at all options.  Building a new K-12 building would cost a minimum of $20 million and our bonding capacity is only $16 million.  That eliminates building a brand new school from being an option.  There are also many academic benefits to having our school located in town.

Why don’t we have one high school for all of the area schools?

Who is going to give up their high school?  Should we give up our high school when Elkader leads the county in sales tax revenue?  Should MFL Mar-Mac give up their high school when they have the most kids?  If we do give up our high school, what will that do for our local businesses?  In my experience, every town that loses their school suffers major economic distress once that school is gone.

How do we know Central won’t be closed in 20 years?

Nobody can say for certainty how things will be 20 years into the future.  We can only look at current factors and make the best decision possible based on the information we have now.  Central’s current enrollment is 450 students; projections for the next couple years look similar with possible increases. 

One thing we considered was West Central.  Their current enrollment is 265 students.  They just invested $7.9 million into an addition.  If you look at Central’s enrollment the past 5 years, we average a loss of 6 students a year.  At that rate it would take us 31 years to get down to 265 students.  This strongly indicates that Central will be here for the life of the bond and beyond. 

The Central School Board and I also believe we can pay off the bond in less than 20 years.

How do you get the support of the agricultural community?

This is the toughest area to get support, in my opinion.  Those of us who own property in town know our property values will plummet if we lose our school.  Agricultural land value isn’t affected in the same way.  Still, there are benefits for our agricultural community to support this bond:

·      Central currently has the 2^nd lowest tax rate when compared to our bordering districts.

·      Currently, some of our rural students are on a bus for an hour, which will only increase if we don’t have a school.

·      Central supports agriculture through FFA, 4H and our industrial technology classes.  This is an area being remodeled in the bond. 

·      Many of our students graduate, go off to college, and come back home.  Some continue to work on the family farm; others take jobs that support the agricultural industry.

Why should the business community support this project?

Central Community School District runs a $7 million dollar yearly budget.  Out of that $7 million, approximately half goes to salaries.  The people employed by Central spend a lot of money and tax dollars in our local community.  It would be very hard to argue taking $7 million dollars out of the Central community would have a positive affect on our local businesses.  We need a quality school if we want to attract quality people to our community.  How do I get the best educators, how does the hospital get the best doctors, or how do we get people to live here when we show them a school building that isn’t safe and accessible for all?

When is good enough no longer "good enough?"

As we near the upcoming bond vote for Central's proposed remodel project, the opposition is starting to use "good enough" as a reason not to support the project.  So I have to ask, what does "good enough" mean? 

Here is a picture of my truck, a 2002 Chevy Silverado which I bought with 17,000 miles.  By far and away the most dependable, low maintenance vehicle I have ever owned.  Yet, is it "good enough"?  The motor has over 250,000 miles on it and as you can see the body is deteriorating badly.  Should I replace the body and continue to maintain it, or should I start looking for a replacement? 

In essence, this is where we are at with our K-12 building.  43 years since Central last passed a bond issue to do anything major to our facilities.  Like my truck, there comes a time where maintenance no longer makes sense.  Sure we can continue to be "good enough" and maintain our building, and with a "no" vote that is exactly what we will do.  Looking around our community, I don't see anything that says "good enough".  A large investment was made to improve our downtown store fronts.  Our industrial park (CAT, MTS, Alpine, and our Fire Department) all have state of the art buildings.  Looking around this summer I see many residents making improvements to their houses.  Our community became a pioneer with the addition of a whitewater park and Founders Park.  Innovative Ag Services put in a new bin and is moving to a new computerized system to better support farmers.  Again, nowhere do I see "good enough" in our community so why should "good enough" be the standard we want for our school district?

Central has the second lowest tax rate when compared to our neighbors, and the highest overall academics (source- 2014 Iowa Assessments).  Yet we also outsourced $200,000 last year due to our inability to have handicapped students in our building.  These are ongoing costs to taxpayers.  And more importantly, us turning our backs on our local children who have the highest needs.

I will do another piece next week getting more specific about costs, projections, and concerns I am hearing.  I completely understand someone not being able to afford higher taxes.  What I do not understand is how we can have a "good enough" attitude for our children and our community's future.