While still the early days, USD 258 Superintendent of Schools Kay Lewis is inviting community input regarding the potential construction of a new Humboldt school or else the major renovation of an existing school building as part of a future bond issue.
The current bond will be paid off in September of 2021, explained Lewis at Monday nights school board meeting. So we probably need to start thinking about [whether] we want to go through another bond issue. [Do] we want to look at building [new]? [Do] we want to look at updating our current buildings? Or [do] we think everything looks good and we dont want to do anything.
The district high school was constructed in 1922. Lewis called it probably one of our sturdiest buildings. The elementary school was built in 1963 again, one of our sturdiest buildings. The middle school and technology building were built in 1995. Finally, the Community Fieldhouse dates back to 2007.
Lewis is eager to broaden the conversation to include the widest possible cross-section of district voices, and says that she wants any preparatory decisions the board makes to be informed by the diversity of opinions at large in the community. To this end, she hopes to organize, in the next few months, a collection of 60 or so individuals district staff, administration, community volunteers, board members, area architects, engineers, etc. to conduct walk-throughs of the districts buildings, evaluating the needs of each. Just look, said Lewis, and see what we think.
The superintendent is eager to balance the districts prospective infrastructural needs against the communitys appetite for another bond issue. (In 2005, Humboldt approved a $5.9 million bond issue, which funded the fieldhouse and other renovations throughout the district.) Currently, we pay on bonds…and when that gets paid off in 2021 that will lower peoples property tax. And then when you decide to come in maybe five or six or seven years later and say, Hey, we want to build a brand new school some voters may not smile so kindly on that sort of request, said Lewis. So, again, I think now is the opportune time to look and see and get an idea of where our buildings are.
The board agreed to Lewiss plan to seek community involvement perhaps even staging a community forum at some point and, in the meantime, to research the success of comparably sized districts that have pursued similar projects.
IN OTHER NEWS, the board:
Approved the March 11-15 senior trip to Nashville and the May 1-5 band trip (grades 7-12) to San Antonio.
Approved the bid for $1801 from Derek Wrestler for the districts 2002 Ford Excursion (as is).
Heard a postmortem from the schools unparalleled, multi-award-winning journalism program on their recent trip to Chicago.
