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May 2017 | Volume 24, Issue 8
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Independent School District 15 Communications Department St. Francis, Minnesota Serving the communities of Andover, Athens Township, Bethel, East Bethel, Linwood Township, Nowthen, Oak Grove, St. Francis and Stanford Township
Remember to vote May 23 Lisa Rahn
ISD 15 Community Education Director
The community will decide Tuesday, May 23, on Independent School District 15’s proposed bond referendum. The goals for the referendum are to address deferred maintenance and physical facility needs throughout the district, enhance program and education spaces to better meet current educational curricular needs and objectives, improve districtwide safety and security, and improve activities and athletic amenities to better accommodate current programs and offerings. A question and answer document is on the District’s website at www.isd15.org/ bond. Will community members, staff, students and others have input in the planning and design process after the vote? Absolutely. Approval of the bond referendum by voters on May 23 will authorize the detailed planning and design process. Just as the planning to this point was driven by input, the design process will involve interested staff and community members to assist the design
team in development of final solutions for renovations and other improvements to ensure that all are appropriate for our school district. What will happen if the bond referendum fails? This plan is the direct outcome of months of planning and development. As such, there is no “Plan B” ready to be implemented. If the bond referendum were to fail, the district will need to go into planning again to determine the next course of action. What we can say is this: The needs won’t go away. Physical conditions will continue to age, or in some cases, deteriorate and the district will need to find some way to address those issues. Educational needs that are to be addressed through the referendum improvements will continue to exist. Use of numerous portable classrooms will continue throughout the district and programs with limited or inadequate space will continue to struggle The time is now to address these issues as costs will increase with time. If the district chooses to ask for support on the same issue again, costs will almost certainly be higher.
Saints Academy’s woodshop students, built three picnic tables—two for Crossroads School & Vocational Center and one for Independent School District 15 (ISD 15) Central Services. The sixteen students in class learned teamwork and elementary carpentry skills to complete the tables and other projects. Pictured with the students (back row, L-R) is ISD 15 Superintendent Troy Ferguson and woodshop instructor Dennis Sargent. THe Courier Photo
Why didn’t the district take care of the buildings in the first place so we wouldn’t need to spend this much to fix them? How does the district intend to keep them up after these improvements? The district’s yearly deferred maintenance budget is a fraction of the yearly maintenance needs. While district staff does a fantastic job of keeping buildings operational and looking great, the size and scope of long-term maintenance projects regularly exceed that amount and over time, this adds to the backlog of projects to complete. Currently, the only way to pay for large maintenance projects like these is to ask voters to support a referendum to complete these projects. The proposed bond referendum will address decades of maintenance needs that have been unable to be
completed over time based on available funding. Completion of this work will in essence “reset” the list of maintenance needs within the district, which will allow staff to become proactive in addressing needs as they arise in the future. In addition, recent legislative changes in how schools can access funding for on-going maintenance work will improve the district’s ability to keep pace with annual maintenance and facilities needs moving forward. Does this bond referendum accommodate for long-range planning and growth? Yes. The proposed renovations and improvements will be developed to provide space for future flexibility and modest enrollment growth. Portable classrooms will be replaced with permanent classrooms, existing spaces will be renovated and expanded
to better accommodate educational programming needs, both now and into the future. I own a $150,000 home. What would be my increase in taxes? It would be $52.84 per year, or $4.40 per month for Question 1. It would be an additional $49.23 per year, or $4.10 per month, for Question 2. Question 2 is dependent Continued On Page 28
Inside Schools in Action........................2 Community Education............10 Spring Lawn & Garden............16 Community & Business...........19 Memorial Day Salute................22 School Board Highlights..........27 Sports & Outdoors....................29 Meetings, Events & Benefits....31 Life...............................................32