The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

Letter to the Editor:

I am writing this letter to encourage support of School Bond Initiative 5B, which would increase the bond for voters in the Haxtun School District to raise the needed funds to apply for a B.E.S.T. grant. These funds would allow the school to pursue construction of a new Pre-K, Elementary, Auxiliary Gym and Agriculture Education Facility and I encourage you to vote yes on this measure for several reasons.

The BEST grant was established to benefit schools in the rural parts of the state to allow schools access to the funds needed for larger building projects. Without these funds, large projects may not be feasible due to increasing construction costs. This grant is a 50/50 matching grant so if the school is selected as one of the projects to be funded by the BEST foundation, that school must then provide funds up to the maximum amount legally allowable toward the project. The grant then matches those dollars and provides the remaining funding for completion of the project. Our school district is currently allowed to provide up to $3.5 million dollars and the estimated total cost of this project would be nearly $45 million. If we are awarded this BEST grant, the grant will match our $3.5 million and pick up the remaining $33 million. That is the only way a project of this scope can be funded by our district and is a great return on our investment.

Secondly, there are several issues with the size and layout of our current Pre-K facility that must be addressed in order to maintain their license. To make those needed changes, our district is looking at an approximately $3-4 million dollar renovation project and that only addresses the preschool issues, not the remaining safety and facilities issues with other portions of the school.

While we, as a community, have done a great job of maintaining school property, our current elementary classrooms do not meet the demands of the modern, innovative classes being taught in the elementary school. The aging electrical system was not designed to keep up with the technology load it is faced with today. The layout of the classrooms, hallways and common spaces is inefficient and creates logistical challenges for the teachers and para professionals who try their best to make the most of what is available. One of the issues includes figuring out a practice schedule that works for the six to seven different groups of sports teams (from third grade to high school) and the community exercise groups that all are competing for time between the locker room, weight room and gym spaces we currently have. Other concerns include windows in the coach’s offices that face the showers, visiting teams having to use locker rooms that require them to have access to the rest of the school, and the lack of ventilation and lighting in the current small gym. Rebuilding and/or renovating this portion of the school is estimated to be near $24 million making that project only feasible with the use of a BEST grant and an inefficient way to solve only one set of issues.

Finally, countless people reading this attended Ag Education classes in our current facility and have many, many memories of those classes and the learning that happened there. We have one of the best-equipped and most spacious Ag departments in the state. While I have no desire to leave “my own little rock” and rebuild something that has served our community so well for so many years, according to the audit that was completed prior to the start of this entire process, this building and much of the utilities within it have served their useful life and require updating. The idea of building a new Ag Shop is nothing new and it has been mentioned at least every three or four years since I’ve been here. The issue is that this is not like building a new shop on the farm. I have been reassured that we will be able to build a new facility that mirrors the size and space we have now. In order to build a new Ag building with the same kind of space and be equipped to meet the required specifications needed for a new facility to adequately train future welders, fabricators, scientists, engineers and “Agvocates,” we are looking at an estimated $6,000,000.

I do not like the idea of maxing out the school’s debt capacity for a few years until the current bond sunsets in 2033. I do not like the idea of applying for a grant without a hard copy of the design and layout, especially for my own little piece of the “rock.” In addition, I do not like the idea of raising taxes on our community members, especially those who are majority landowners in our Ag community, to fund this project. Even so, I still encourage a YES vote on School Bond Initiative 5B because I see this as the only way to leverage buildings and facilities that need renovated or replaced for the smallest dollar amount possible to our school district. This is the best cost to benefit option we can find.

I know I speak for the members of this committee when I say, “questions cannot be answered if they are not asked.” I would be happy to answer any questions I can and know the rest of the committee, school board and administration would be happy to do the same.

Jeff Plumb, Haxtun