What became clear to members of a school steering committee Thursday afternoon was that each time they present their plans to a group of the uninitiated, theyre going to have to start at square one all over again.
When they began meeting nine months ago, its not an exaggeration to say those who volunteered to study Iola schools could probably not agree the sky is blue.
On Thursday, they met with a crowd of local businessmen and women and a large contingent from Allen Community College who came armed with questions:
Why build new as opposed to renovating existing schools?
What plans do you have for the abandoned buildings?
What proof do you have new schools will improve education outcomes?
How will new schools provide better efficiencies?
How will new schools free up money to pay our teachers better?
How can we afford new schools?
Because theyve hashed out those very questions, committee members were not deterred.
We had to put all our biases behind us and concentrate not only on what we thought would benefit the kids and the community, but also what we thought the community would support in terms of cost, said Ryan Sparks of the nine-month process.
Looking at over 20 scenarios, we reached consensus that a new elementary was the best place to start. We couldnt ignore the savings in operations, utilities and personnel with one elementary.
What we have today is nothing like that plan of 2014, Sparks said, referring to the failed school bond issue that had a new high school and elementary school on the northern outskirts of town.
Everything is going to be in town. No question. Weve been very cautious with not trying to hit a home run and go for everything, but to get the process started, in what they view as an eight-year master plan.
Thursdays meeting was to see whether committee members have even reached first base.
