Stanton School District looking at facility’s future

The Stanton School District is making plans for the future.
The school recently held a community meeting outlining possible improvements to the facility, as well as public input. Stanton School Board President John McDonald started off the event by expressing his appreciation to everyone that had gotten them this far.
“I’m a parent here and member of the school board. I’d like to welcome you all. I’d like to express my appreciation like to the additional community staff who helped us with our facilities process, the additional school staff members who assisted and also community members who are participating on strategic planning.”
The meeting then moved to discussion of the current school building, and noted areas that had room for improvement. McDonald said the ideas were simply the current ones so far, and the district and board were still open to additional ideas. McDonald said there were key opportunities for the district beyond facilities.
“A good way to work on strategy is to leverage your strengths. Of course we have exceptional community support. This community is really good at community betterment and also supporting the school. We also have small town advantages of knowing each other and caring. We have a solid curriculum and programs at our school. Our teachers and staff  we can thank for that. We have many more strengths that could be called out, but I just want to highlight the top few,” McDonald said.
While there were multiple strengths, McDonald said the district also had a few cases of adversity.
“We are facing trouble hiring teachers and other staff. This is widespread; it is not limited to our school district. We face it here and we also compete with other school districts. Next is retaining staff, which is even more important. When you have quality staff you want to retain them. Again, that’s not limited to our district. Finally, there’s an increase in behavior issues. So the challenges in schools today are just not what they were years ago. We need to think about those strengths we can leverage and the key needs and just see how those fit together with our strategy for facilities,” stated McDonald.
McDonald then yielded to Dan Strain and Kevin Schluckebier, representing KPE Architecture. A photographic tour of the facility was given, with potential improvements to each areas. All of the projects were identified through a facility assessment done by KPE.
• The elementary school: The air handler is original to the building or to the elementary addition, which is in the early 90s. It is past its useful life. The boilers are original. The pump was act not operating at the time of the facility assessment.
• Administrative offices and main entry updates to improve safety: Additional classroom space, as seen with the makerspace could be added, as well as a data intercom and fire alarm. The fire alarm is functional, but there is newer technology, and there may be some questions with the fire alarm over the project. Intercom and speakers are more flexible and easier for the staff to use. Strain said there were other options.
“Those entering the high school recognize the sensory vestibule that we have here, as well as those that go into the elementary side. The offices were more centralized. We don’t have that connection to the visitors as you come in. So in today’s world, you’re going to see, almost as a standard right now, having the security vestibule so that you can see folks as they approach, that outside of arrival and dismissal, they have to be buzzed in, go through the office, be checked in before they have access to the rest of the school. So this is one of the things that we have on there,” commented Strain.
• Air conditioning at the gym: The gymnasium has units in the corner that are for heating only. The space can use air conditioning. Also under potential projects was an update to the gym’s sound system.
• Restrooms are inaccessible: Most of the restrooms are not going to be accessible. The partitions are older. ADA compliance
• Locker room updates. The shower heads need updated and the plumbing fixtures are old.
Schluckebier also discussed the potential for upgrading furniture in the classrooms.
“A lot of this you’ll recognize if you’ve been here for a few years. There are better options out there. That’s what we see, and that’s what we want to have experienced.
The educational environment has really changed significantly. We want to have the high-quality equipment that can last long,” Schluckebier explained.
• Storm or safer shelter areas: While there are already some areas in the building, they are possibly not conveniently located. Some of the safer areas do have windows, which are not ideal. Improvement was identified within the storm safety zone.
• Updates to the athletic field and the connection with locker rooms: Upgrades would include toilets, concessions, and a press box.
• The Ag classroom: Students do a lot of lab work, and a lot of hands-on work. Right now the students are in a carpeted area in the middle of the building. Other areas of the building may be updated or renovated and be more suitable for that kind of work.
• The weight room. Issues noted included tripping hazards, accessibility, While it looks spacious, all the students are in there lifting and moving weights around at the same time.
• The track: The track needs to be resurfaced and some of the lighting could be updated to LED for better efficiency.
Additional storage: Noted as a concern when dealing with schools. Schools mass purchase at the beginning of the year and then have to have a place to hold the items throughout the year that is also environmentally secure so paper doesn’t stick to itself. Options were available for better and more secure spaces.
• The softball field:  Needs a full review for drainage, for turf, and for the perimeter fence. Lighting upgrades and improvements to the dugouts were also cited.
• An auditorium: Currently the district has no dedicated auditorium space, simply a portable stage in the gym, so a new auditorium was a potential wish list project.
• Parking lot improvements: Identified in the assessment. The south lot is gravel. The west lot has a lot of large cracks and hasn’t been repaired in a while. There were potential drainage issues as well. Some of the cracks are fairly large.
• Digital sign: New installation, a way to promote school events and get more information out.
• Coaches office update.
The district has already had some improvements, including a makerspace and upgrades to the science rooms.
“The upgrades make things a little bit more flexible. It allows for both lecture and lab work in the same space. It fits more of what the curriculum is doing and supports that in a better way with that added flexibility. The lighting and then updated storage really put the things that are needed to be stored in that little bit more convenient location throughout the classroom,” Schluckebier explained. “The maker space, right inside of the high school main entryway, has a number of zones within. There’s a classroom zone that we have up front with the presentation. It’s again supporting the skills our students need as they leave school going into the world, being able to present like this and support their work and present themselves very well. Having an area that helps with that and kind of set up to support those educational needs is a key thing. The study hall is a very flexible space. It gives you that opportunity here to maximize the number of students that we need to have in different zones for different experiments and lab work. We have a computer area on to the side. That one’s a little bit more fixed, but it’s set up for that use. And that’s just a portion of the corner. In the back area you have a lot of experimentation of new printers, 3D printers, 3D prints. Some of those elements we’re getting into business and utilizing some of those fun tools that are actually part of our daily life now. The TV studio gives you a little bit more for recording, for sound, for green screen. It’s some of those skills that we’re bringing in for presentation and some of those elements.”
Superintendent David Gute then addressed the audience with some of the potential options the district could use to fund some of the projects.
“When school districts decide to do larger projects and borrow money, there’s a couple of different ways that we can go about gathering that money or moving forward. So the first one that I have up here is SAVE dollars. And SAVE dollars are done through the 1% sales tax across the state. When you go to Casey’s and buy a piece of pizza, 1% of that goes into a fund, and then school districts all across the state receive that funding back. Generally, every month we get a check on the SAVE dollars. So we currently have bonded against SAVE dollars for two more years,” advised Gute.
“We have three more payments. We have to make a payment in 25, a payment in 2026, and a payment in 2027 before our current bond against SAVE dollars is paid off. The school district did that eight to 10 years ago. We put in the elevator and new lights at Anderson Park. We borrowed around $1 million at that time.”
Over 10 years, the district could generate $1.465 million in SAVE dollars, and $2 million in 15 years, but Gute said they couldn’t do anything for a further two years until all the repayments are made. The next option that school district could consider would be a new general obligation bond.
“This isn’t a bond on property taxes. It is a bond on businesses and landowners, if that makes sense. Only people that live in the state and school district would be able to vote on that bond. You’d only do GO bond votes in November on the general election. So if the school district and ultimately the school board decided to move forward with a GO bond, the money that they could generate is right here, over a 20-year. They could generate at $2.70 at their taxable valuation. It’s not your assessed valuation, but your taxable valuation, which is different. They could generate $3.6 million moving forward towards the project. You could do a two-vote bond, which is a little bit more to it. We won’t get into all these details, but you could generate $5.5 million.
Gute added that based on the list of items on there, $2 million or even $5.5 million probably wouldn’t cover everything on the list.
“As we think about things moving forward and trying to prioritize, there’s going to have to be concessions on things that we do. Everyone probably has a different idea of what the perfect thing to do is, but the person sitting next to you is probably not exactly the same, There’s probably not two people thinking exactly the same. We conducted a survey. There were over 60 comments given, with 43 of those actually being directed towards facilities.”
The items in priority listed by the survey from highest to lowest were:
• Heating and cooling system replacement.
• Additional classroom space.
• Data, intercom, and fire alarm updates.
• Administrative offices and main entry updates to improve safety.
• Air conditioning in the high school gym.
• Restroom and accessibility updates.
• Common area updates including the cafeteria, kitchen, and concession stand.
• Locker room updates.
• Gym electrical and sound system updates.
• Classroom furniture updates.
• Storm shelter updates.
• Athletic facility updates between the school building and football field.
• Agricultural classroom updates.
• Weight room updates.
• Track updates.
• Additional storage space including academic, custodial, and athletic.
• Softball field updates.
• New auditorium
• Pave parking lot including the west and south lots.
• Digital welcome sign to promote events, job opportunities, and more.
• Coaches office update.
Gute said the comments included people who wanted the school to upgrade everything, to some comments stating they did not want taxes raised.
“Probably the number one generality is people will support educational needs, classroom space, educational improvements. Safety improvements, was probably the next and second highest comment of what people would support. While there were comments about not raising taxes, a few of those comments also said that they would support education or safety, but not all of them,” said Gute.
Four stations were placed around the gym, and each of the members of the audience were given five stickers to place on the top five items they felt were the most important of the list generated through the survey. After the stickers were placed, Schluckebier shared some impromptu results.
“The top three, I think, are very consistent. The heating and cooling system replacements, additional classroom spaces, and superior vestibule, administrative entryways and offloading, and central office elements updated for safety. We’ll be looking at the pricing and trying to figure out where do we go next with those priorities, it’s great to have this information,” advised Schluckebier. “We’ll take this information and back it up. We’ll take it to the facility under our strategic planning committee and also back to the school board and determine what the cost would be to do some of them, and discuss financing options.”
As the meeting closed out, Gute made it clear this would not be the only meeting to discuss school improvements. There will be more meetings in the near future sharing more information.