On April 2, residents in the Gasconade County R-2 School District will be asked to maintain a 67-cent debt service levy that will pay for the next 10 years of major “brick and mortar” repairs, replacements, and security projects.

The needs of the district were determined between April and July 2022 by a group of community members called the Long-Range Facility Planning Committee, beginning with Owensville High School (OHS).

Superintendent Dr. Jeri Kay Hardy explained what the committee was formed to accomplish.

“The Longe-Range Facility Committee is an advisory committee of community stakeholders, the board of education, administrators, and retired teachers, who will support the school when planning for the future of our students and allow us to maintain a compass that promotes student achievement,” Hardy said. “The committee gathers every five to seven years to assess the needs of the district, to provide support during a bond issue and a voice for, and to the community as to what improvements are being made.”

Members provide advice and guidance on projects they feel are important and why those projects are needed. Each item is presented to the board of education with a number indicating its priority.

Before the planning committee determines new district needs, it reviews the projects and funds spent during the previous bond issue.

Accountability from 2016 no-tax-increase bond issue

In 2022, the committee reviewed completed projects from the 2016 no-tax-increase bond issue and how funds were distributed. The board has five years to spend funds from a bond issue. Rather than complete all projects at once, they are scheduled over five years so future maintenance does not come due all at once.

In 2016, the administration had 11 items on its wish list. The only item listed as a priority was moving the administration building to the main campus. It was later determined that the project would be too expensive. Some of the remaining nine items listed as second priority included building updates that were completed: wallpaper, flooring, lighting and window replacement, better file storage and desk space, a larger board room, and ADA-compliant bathrooms.

In 2022, the board added relocating the parking lot and basketball court behind the administration building.

The bus barn had seven priorities listed in degrees of importance, of which six have been completed with one categorized as scheduled maintenance.

Some of the items replaced included an intercom system, lighting for the parking lot, replacing old or non-working cameras with digital and adding a second camera for safety. Another project, expanding the warehouse storage space available at the bus barn, was approved in October 2021 but delayed due to a shortage of materials.

All four of the priorities for Dutchmen Stadium were completed, including electricity in the concession stand and improvements to the sound system.

At Gerald Elementary School (GES), 29 suggested improvements were made and 25 were completed The remaining four items were deemed obsolete or unattainable.

A few GES projects that were completed included new security doors, additional lighting, and recent updates to the HVAC units in the kitchen and office areas.

At Owensville Elementary School (OES), 10 items were listed to improve the building, of which eight were completed and two were deemed cost-prohibitive.

A few OES projects completed included flooring replacements, fixing concrete deterioration at parent pick-up, and an additional sidewalk to the new playground.

At Owensville Middle School (OMS) 20 items were listed of which one remains incomplete.

Items completed included general maintenance, replaced basketball goals, and exterior concrete maintenance. Inadequate gym space was listed as a problem for the OMS gym and remains the only incomplete item on that list.

Owensville High School (OHS) is the oldest building within the district and listed 30 facility needs of which 24 have been completed.

A few items completed included lighting replacement in the large gym and small gym, a phone system added to classrooms, and an upgraded large gym sound system.

The six items that were not completed, such as a water treatment system for the kitchen, replacing the HVAC system in the kitchen, or replacing failing bleachers in the main gym, were deemed too expensive without additional sources of funding.

Future brick-and-mortar needs at OHS

At Owensville High School, Principal Kris Altemeyer presented the following needs for his building:

Building security was the first item on the list. The primary building and annexed agriculture building require students to travel between buildings each class hour, leaving both buildings unlocked for about an hour a day. Additionally, students have outgrown classroom space for career tech programs in the agriculture building. The result is either a crowded workspace or overflow into smaller classrooms in the main building that are not designed or equipped to house the equipment.

At the northern end of the high school, Altemeyer said connecting the high school with the agriculture building and adding additional classrooms would create more space while increasing security.

Any new addition to the school, according to law, must include a FEMA safe storm building. Adding four classrooms and an auditorium space would fit the needs of the students.

“The idea would be to build it out here (on the northern end of the building) and connect all three buildings so the kids wouldn’t have to go outside. The agriculture, main building and performing arts center all interconnected,” Altemeyer said. “That’s the general idea, although there are not a lot of details yet. If there is one thing you would ask me that we need more than anything here, that would be it. I know it’s probably the most expensive also.”

Hardy said the building’s aesthetics would also be discussed.

“Gary (Pohlmann, transportation and maintenance director) has had a couple of conversations about the courtyards,” Altemeyer said. “Possibly if nothing else, putting concrete and tables in there, things like that, where we don’t have to bring the lawnmower in there every week.”

Altemeyer said putting concrete in the courtyard would help with the maintenance of those areas that are currently unused.

The original purpose of the courtyards was to give classrooms on the inside of the building window accessibility.

“This is just getting our wishlist together, it is not saying if it is on the list it’s gonna happen,” Hardy said. “One thing that we’re thinking about, if we were to have any construction projects, with a lot of the changes with gender (concerns), is eventually if we have to do construction, it may be individual stalls just to make sure that we are compliant,” Hardy said.

Altemeyer led the group touring facilities then to the agriculture building and stopped first at the weight training room.

“One of the long-term plans that goes along with the performing arts center — we are looking at this space and running out of room,” Altemeyer said. “It’s nicer than other facilities at some high schools, but it’s a long way away from the other athletic facilities. The plan would be if we could build that center to move (the weight training room) into the current band and music room, where it is right next to the gym and locker rooms. It would open up this area for the shop classes, CNC routers that are in our mechanic shop next door that would do a lot better in here. It’s bigger and really needs to be used in a cleaner environment than what it’s in. So we could have more of the CNC routers and things in this area if we were able to make that transition.”

Charlie Schottach, a member of the Long Range Facility Planning Committee, asked Altemeyer about the capacity of a performing arts center.

“The student body is around 550,” Altemeyer said. “If we could do 600 to 650 people at least to fit the entire student body in it.”

In the STEM lab, Altemeyer pointed out the CNC routers that are utilized in the space.

“It’s used here a lot, but space-wise it gets pretty cramped and loud in here when everything is running. The idea is that if we can open up that space it would be helpful.”

Ideally, the STEM lab would be kept as a classroom and have a separate STEM shop class.

In the woodshop, Schlottach asked if there was anything the district needed regarding workforce development that wasn’t being addressed.

“The problem we have is all those trades are drying up,” Pohlmann said. “All of the people in skilled labor trades, there are less and less of those people every day.”

Pohlmann said the wishlist for him would be a larger area. Maintenance had to wait a whole year to get into the bay and work on the lights because it was so full of projects.

“I have never tried to figure out how you would go about extending this building,” Pohlmann said.

An estimated 20 students are enrolled in the class. Altemeyer said there are 56 to 60 kids in the classroom throughout the day.

Outside, Hardy pointed out the lights in Dutchmen Stadium that will have to be purchased because they can’t be replaced. If that happens, she prefers lights that can be adjusted for theatrical purposes.

The former A+ Lab that is attached to the library could be utilized as a concession stand according to Altemeyer. Students use Chromebooks and no longer need stationary computers in a computer lab.

“We don’t utilize this as much as we did originally,” Altemeyer said. “Having storage and possibly a concession stand to get that out of the kitchen is something we would like to do.”

He also added that the gym needs new pullout bleachers.

“New bleachers are probably right behind the performing arts center, the second biggest need,” he said. “Going in and out as much as they do during the day, a lot of it has to be done manually to straighten out the bottom ones. One of these times we are going to pull them in or out and they are just not going to go. It is a big-ticket item.”

The big gym currently has a capacity of 2,000 people. Each section of bleachers holds about 500 people.

“This is a great gym for a school our size and other than the bleachers, we couldn’t ask for more than what we have here,” Altemeyer said. The bleachers have been priced around half a million dollars.