Voters in May 2019 defeated a proposed bond issue by around 200 votes. That proposed project involved renovations of and a 94,000-square-foot addition to L.T. Ball Intermediate School for prekindergarten through grade five. Nevin Coppock Elementary, Broadway Elementary and the Tipp Central building would no longer be used.
A district facilities committee, which included Patry as a board representative, was again looking at options when the COVID-19 pandemic and school closings arrived in spring 2020.
A facilities committee with mostly new faces has again been meeting behind the scenes to review options. Since spring 2020, the district has a new superintendent, treasurer and facilities manager, all serving on the committee.
The committee has heard a report from local company Energy Optimizers on the possibilities for renovating/updating the existing elementary schools and Tipp Central following a structural analysis of the buildings and findings they could be renovated.
Patry at first proposed hiring Ruetschle Architects, the firm involved in the previous proposal design, to update those cost estimates. After more discussions with the firm, it offered to do the cost update for free along with a requested review of the Energy Optimizers proposal. The review would be to ensure the committee would be comparing apples to apples, Patry said.
“(The findings) could enlighten us to say renovation is best, or rebuild,” he said. “Before we abandon a plan that we spent several hundred thousand dollars on, we have to understand if we want to start from scratch, a renovation, resurrect the plan.”
The current administration, Patry said, lacks institutional knowledge of what has been reviewed and proposed previously.
The board eventually voted 3-2 to accept the Ruetschle offer. Patry and two members new to the board this year — Amber Drum and Rick Mains — voted yes while board members Theresa Dunaway and Anne Zakkour voted no.
Zakkour said she thinks the board has a lot of information to review before it can make decisions. Among the topics that need to be explored in depth are the future of prekindergarten and kindergarten offerings and how building location selection would affect busing and walkability of students.
“With my experience working with some very large projects ... I would like to see action steps,” she said of the current facilities approach.
Dunaway, who was on the board when the last bond issue failed, said no one has asked if there still is interest in the community for the previous plan. That plan failed to address existing problems with traffic at the proposed site of L.T. Ball where Nevin Coppock and the middle school also are located, she said.
“I don’t know why we are stuck on this plan,” Dunaway said, adding staff needs to be involved in any planning, which wasn’t the case with the previous proposal.
Mains said he wants action on long-talked-about facilities improvements for his young grandchildren.
“I want to see details,” he said. “At least give me something ... a place to start.”
Contact this contributing writer at nancykburr@aol.com
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