BELLE — Gasconade County R-2 Board of Education President Glenn Ely addressed a full house on Monday night regarding the district’s request for a $16,500,000 no-tax-increase bond issue for capital improvements on the district’s campuses.

“Our next subject is around the resolution of the bond,” Ely began. “I think it is important to stop and take a couple of minutes to discuss how we’ve — 10 plus years ago, we’ve started introducing and identified a need, to create a cycle of the needs that we could manage the day-in and day-out expense to operate and maintaining the buildings in our school district. The key thing about bonds is that they can only be used for bricks and mortar. That is the key purpose.”

Ely went on to discuss the district’s bond history. In 1997, the middle school was built on a bond issue and in 2005 a second bond build the Owensville Elementary School.

“It felt like we were being asked, and we should be, the bond is registered with the State Auditor. The bond issues have been around, in trying to invest in the facilities and make choice improvements we described earlier,” Ely said. “Besides a healthy elementary and middle school, the bond gave us the opportunity to create better programs, which the gaps we talked about earlier, that’s the cheapest dollar investment anyone can make.”

Ely was referring to the district’s preschool expansion program that started this school year.

“Students who have those gaps for a year or two will have those gaps for their entire life,” Ely said about students who continue to fall more than two grades behind. “Very few students are able to reduce that gap.”

Ely concluded with the long-term planning for the cycle of expenses helps the district to concentrate its funds on class offerings and curriculum instead of building projects.

“The community has been part of that and from within the buildings, what do those priority projects look like,” Ely said. “As a board we evaluate those priority projects.”

The board revisited the district’s list of capital improvement needs during a Dec. 13 special meeting. Ely touched on the discussion from that meeting.

“We discussed on how to shorten or lengthen the list because regardless of where you fall on it, what does that good stewardship of this money look like,” he said. “The majority of activities around bond issues has been renegotiating and reducing the time of that debt as we move forward. When we have opportunity to reduce that bond weight, as described earlier this evening, we do.”

Ely was referring to two projects, including preschool expansion and an alternative learning classroom that were on the 2023 bond issue list in April that the district decided to move forward with out of regular funds because they “saw a need.”

“One of the things we want to focus is on is to not erode the quality of our facilities, the upkeep,” Ely said.

In no particular order, Ely named the following projects the district identified as needs for bond funds.

“The turf for the football field is out of warranty, the bleachers for the OHS gym, the expansion from OHS to connect the main building to the ag building,” Ely began. “This one is about making the connection and to use our existing facilities in a more student-centered way.”

Owensville High School (OHS) Principal Kris Altemeyer took over to describe the annex building.

“It would obviously help the folks who would move out to the new classrooms, but it would also open up some areas that make more sense logistically to our kids,” Altemeyer said.

The band room would move out to the new classroom space, allowing the weight room to be located in the current band room.

“If this is the case, our weight room would move next to  the gym where the band room is now, next to the locker room, so kids don’t have to walk all the way out to the Ag building, which is really the only space we had available, finally giving us a decent weight room,” Altemeyer said. “And then where our weight room is would open up some more opportunities for some career tech equipment (CTE) and expand on those programs as well. That along with the improved safety aspect because we have two separate buildings. We have a great Ag program and we have a lot of kids go in and out every hour and have to open up our building, the doors in our building, each hour. We have to unlock the doors so the kids can get in and out. It’s a safety concern and they have to walk out in the weather. It is an added on benefit to have one continuous building.”

Superintendent Dr. Jeri Kay Hardy shared with the group of nearly 30 people that during the district’s legislative breakfast they were concerned about the safety of students traveling between the buildings.

“When we go to safety training now, they don’t say ‘if something happens’ they say ‘when something happens,’” Hardy said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have to think much about that when we were in school. The other aspect is that it would provide a storm shelter in inclement weather for the students and the community. Any annex that we would add on to that building has to be storm-safe. That auditorium also doubles as the storm-safe area for students.”

Hardy said she doesn’t think the community realizes how many students walk between the buildings throughout the day or the safety concerns it presents. The district’s school resource officer Ike Herbel checks the doors to make sure they are closed and locked regularly.

An additional safety concern Hardy mentioned was security camera upgrades.

“Ours are out of date,” Hardy said. “We are trying to be very fiscally responsible and did receive a grant for security cameras. It is going to take every bit of that grant and an additional $87,000 to upgrade our security cameras and it is actually cheaper than we thought it was going to be.”

Hard said the gym bleachers at OHS need to be replaced.

“They can’t hardly — we are going to push them in one of these days for PE and they are not going to come back out,” Hardy said. “They were built when the high school was built. Those are maintenance and updates that we have to do.

“When we talk about the turf is out-of-date, the turf is out-of-date, but better yet, the lighting on the football. Every company we’ve talked to has said ‘if you use the existing poles, they are gone because they are going to fall, and they are going to hurt somebody.

“Yes, we do have maintenance and rotation schedule,” Hardy said. “We do parking lots and we do roofs and tuck pointing and brick sealing. We try to buy our buses on rotation and be very fiscally responsible when we do that, but the things that we also have to have is upkeep.”

Hardy said the middle school gym floor needs to be replaced because it is a dead floor. The gym can’t be used for basketball, it doesn’t have the seating to be utilized for games or concerts.

“The way that technology has come around, we can put enough bleachers in there that our middle school kids don’t have to go to the elementary school for games or concerts anymore,” she said. “We have a lot of community organizations that use our facilities. We allow them the use of our school facilities as a community service. We have people going to Gerald to use their floor. If we can get them better seating and a floor — we are already using every gym available.”

Hardy said other district’s have several churches with gyms, but Gasconade R-2 doesn’t have that and people look to the school to use the facilities.

“If you don’t want to support the football team, that’s fine, but the band practices on that field, too,” Hardy said. “There are band scholarships, athletic scholarships, choir scholarships. We had one student last year that got a $76,000 drama scholarship. Our drama club has over 100 students in it and when they are getting ready for a play — we’ve talked about sharing facilities and making sure facilities are right — I don’t care if you are voting for the bond or not voting for the bond, but what I’m telling is you have kids who are having to practice for the play — where we had standing room only. Wrestlers trying to have wrestling practice and the dance team trying to practice at the same time.

“Whether you feel like we need it or we don’t, we need a storm shelter or we don’t need a storm shelter, at the end of the day, we’re here for the kids. We’re not trying to be frivolous and we are not looking at building the Carnegie Hall. We’re trying to build a facility that is going to last a very long time, where kids can be successful, and where kids can be safe.

“Yes the gym floors need to be redone, but that comes with a price,” Hardy said. “When you are looking at bonds, you have to look at it as a refinance of a house. If you refinance your house to redo your kitchen, you’re going to have to pay the interest.”

Hardy said she isn’t there to argue with anyone about it, the board makes the decision to request the bond from the community.

“If you want to vote no, I can’t change your mind and no one else can. If you want to vote yes, I can’t change your mind and no one else can,” Hardy said. “But at the end of the day, it’s about the kids.”

Hardy said the board of education is very careful about how it spends money. They questioned how they could borrow the least amount of money, revisited the issues and projects with cost.

“We don’t have to pay the architects or the CMARs unless the bond issue is passed,” Hardy  said, explaining the construction manager at risk option.

She mentioned construction fees on the board’s finances that were for repaving parking lots and roofs, not for the bond.

“You don’t pay the CMAR or the architect unless the bond passes and you complete those projects,” she finished. “I am very thankful we have a board of education that works so diligently to be careful. When we look at resources, we don’t get the highest ranked stuff for our kids. We make sure our kids have the best resources available. When we hire teachers, if the teacher isn’t right for kids, I’d rather be short a teacher. I think they have done a really good job for students.”

Ely said there is the possibility of three really big wins.

“The early childhood we expanded at Gerald and OES created a possibility to double the number of students in the program,” he began. “We have students who struggle. We know we have a chance to keep them in-seat and not lose them, and get credit for them as a student, by giving them opportunity for a safe environment (in the alternative learning classroom). And Number three, the career tech program that moves the conversation in a way that can meet more and more needs and creates almost the same opportunities that the return on investment versus dollars gives the students more opportunity and move into the workforce or college.”

Ely said the best return for dollars and families are those three programs.

“It is about money, but it’s more important about creating the possibilities,” Ely  said.

Hardy also mentioned that the data supports that students that attend preschool with the district have a better upward trajectory.

“The gap widens the longer they go to school,” Hardy said. “If they start at 4-years-old, they are going to grow versus the kids that didn’t. To watch these kids grow and learn and flourish from the expansion is amazing because we were able to double the capacity.”

Ely said nearly two years ago, the board visited schools in the surrounding area to determine if they were creating enough opportunities for students in the R-2 school district.

“We evaluated nearly half a dozen schools and said along with our community, what do our needs look like,” Ely said. “That is how the list was generated. Obviously the bond is for the purpose of constructing, improving, renovating and equipping school facilities, including safety/security upgrades. The security piece is not as expansive, but is one of the most important.

“We know that some of the most horrible things that happen in school events happen in districts with populations similar to ours — not in smaller school districts or really large population schools, but ones like ours,” Ely continued. “That is why it is important to have a school resource officer, what does a school resource hub look like or an SRO in each building. We want to make sure we are leveraging the resources available.”

Additionally, Ely reiterated that all new builds are required to be storm-shelter rated and that the ballot language is written as a no-tax-increase bond issue by law.

The board voted 5-0 to approve the resolution to be on the April 7, 2024, ballot requesting voters approve the $16,500,000 bond to improve school facilities within the district. The current capital improvements levy is 67 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. Those funds can be spent only on capital improvements.

When asked what would happen if bond funds ceased to exist because the bond issue was allowed to expire, Hardy said funds for buildings would be taken from teacher/student learning opportunities. “We would use money from the kid and teacher learning funds to go toward repairs,” Hardy said.

Gasconade County R-2 schools are on break after today (Wednesday) until classes resume on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024.