CAPITAL PROJECT VOTE IS TUESDAY
Voters will vote Tuesday on the $29.4 million capital improvement project. I direct you to the website with the infomation, a Q/A, video, regarding the project. Some reminders to share with friends and families who live in the community:
- The state will pay for 71% of the project. That is $21 million of your state dollars coming back into the community.
- The project will have a enormous positive impact on the future well-being of all students and our community.
- We are teaching in the 21st century, but are still in 1960's and 1970s classrooms. This project will support our present and future teaching and learning.
- The wellness suite, location most likely to end up on the bus loop side of the wing, will provide a centralized location for counseling and student support services making these resources easily accessible to all students, reducing barriers to seeking help. We anticipate four spaces not becoming available after personnel are shifted. One space, under a stairwell will be left open. Two smaller spaces will be repurposed for staff and or student use. The fourth space can be repurposed for classroom use.
- The synthetic field turf will provide us with more outside PE time. One reason to propose this long term option was based on the need to create playing fields that would be as safe in year 15 as they would be in year one. Natural grass fields have a limited capacity of endurance that diminishes during a season due to weather conditions and the number of contests played on it. We only need to look at our own natural grass stadium field to see that by mid-season, the field is not in the same condition as opening day and is showing long term capacity issues after 5 years of use. Synthetic turf maintains its capacity to host as many contests and with as much frequency as we need every season and every year. To read more about the product we would use and to read more on the safety aspects of field turf CLICK HERE
- We estimate to save close to $50,000 in maintenance costs per year if we were to have to maintain the same fields if they remain grass. The initial cost for these fields may seem high. We see this start-up cost as a long-term investment. The savings in maintenance over 15 years will position the district to pay for replacing the top turf layer in 14-16 years. The estimated start up cost to do similar work in natural grass would be about 40-50% less upfront costs. Remember, this would then come with an annual $50K maintenance budget out of the general fund as well.
- Though elementary 1st Floor classrooms are not scheduled to be fully renovated in this project, they are slated to have new floors in all classroom bathrooms this school year, possibly some done over the December break.
We acknowledge there are items in this proposed scope that some do not support and items not in the scope that others wanted in. The board facilities committee grappled with all those decisions over many months and believe this project proposal is what is best for C-A now to position us to support our future well-being. The vote is noon-9pm on Tuesday.