The Greene County and Paton-Churdan school boards are planning for summer maintenance projects and purchases. The Greene County board at its March 18 regular meeting approved $576,000 in projects to be funded by the physical plant and equipment levy (PPEL). The P-C board at its March 11 regular meeting discussed projects totaling about $113,000 but did not make any decisions.
Greene County’s athletic facilities will receive the larger portion of the funds this summer, with two major projects planned. Allensworth Field, the home of the Ram baseball team, will see $130,000 in improvements. Activities director Dean Lansman told the board last fall that very little maintenance has been done at the field since it was built in the 1960s. The infield is now so compacted that the surface is dangerously hard for players, and the outfield has settled so there is a significant change in elevation from home plate to the outfield fence. Additionally, poor drainage has caused games to be rescheduled following only moderate rainfall. The project is extensive and will not be started until after the 2015 baseball season.
Linduska Field – the football field – will have new bleachers at a cost of $124,000. The existing bleachers are decades old and are no longer safe. The plan is to replace the large set of bleachers on the press box side of the field and to move the bleachers that are now to the north on the home side to the visitors’ side of the field. The project will be put out for bids.
The board also approved the purchase of a new school bus at a cost of $104,000. The board has a multi-year replacement plan for buses to assure they can be retired from the fleet when needed. The school will also purchase two suburbans at a total cost of $74,000, and a Kubota utility vehicle at a cost of $8,500.
Also in the PPEL budget is $50,000 for Chromebooks and related equipment for middle school students. Technology director Tim Buenz explained that when the school purchased Chromebooks for the high school two years ago, Google gave the district nearly-outdated Chromebooks for the middle school at no cost. Those Chromebooks are now obsolete and will be replaced with the most current technology. Buenz added that the Chromebooks at the high school will likely need to be replaced in another year.
Work at the Wisecup Memorial Gym in Rippey includes putting steel on the west side of the gym, which still shows bare concrete blocks after the razing of the adjacent three-story school last fall. Cost is estimated at $11,000. Also, roof work will be done on the gym at a cost of $12,000.
Other projects include fire safety work, $10,000; two projects toward ADA compliance as identified in the Department of Education site visit last fall, $18,000; replacing carpet in two or three elementary classrooms, $15,000; and new synergistics lab hardware and software at a cost in excess of $10,000.
The Paton-Churdan is considering replacing windows in the kitchen and soffit on the exterior of the building, updating exterior lighting and benches, replacing doors, needed repair to the courtyard walls, painting classrooms and replacing carpet, replacing lockers, and a renovation to the front office. Bids have not been received on all projects.
Superintendent Rob Olsen told the board that replacing soffit and kitchen windows on the south side of the building (near the main entrance) would improve the appearance as visitors approach. “Changing something at the office would change the whole aesthetics as you’re walking into our building,” he said. He suggested remodeling the office and moving furniture to make it more efficient and welcoming, and to provide waiting space inside the office. “I think if will be something that when people come into the building they’ll say, ‘Wow. People are making a difference. The change looks good.’ It’s a sign of living with what we’ve got, because that’s what we have to do… but people will see things are moving forward, we’re doing good things here. There’s a message that can send as well as better serving our public and our parents when people come into the building.”
Board president Steve Burrell suggested getting prices for installing four surveillance cameras inside the school, one pointing down each hallway. Other board members were receptive to the idea and Olsen said he would get prices.
The Greene County schools already have similar cameras. Greene County superintendent Tim Christensen said there are no downsides to having the cameras and that at times, they’ve been useful in sorting out fact from stories.
