Hutchinson Leader - LETTER: Tough economic times for a new school? - Comments

I agree with Roger, go see

arcy — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:44:34 -0500

I agree with Roger, go see the plan. Until you see it on paper in the original form you do not notice the monument to sports HHS will become under the present plan. I read the brochure,I have been to the meetings, no where does it say how this improves EDUCATION. How will passing this make any given student more equipped for college, life, the job market? A lot of indefinite adjectives tells us NOTHING about how this directly effects education. The reason, it DOES NOT. Quality teachers effect education, class size effects education,new fancy buildings DO NOT. It is yet to be seen if the present building can be made more energy efficient. I have heard nothing that says they looked into that.

Sell it

Aura_Lee — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:52:55 -0500

Sell it

I would encourage everyone

justonevoice — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:47:48 -0500

I would encourage everyone to attend the school district's informational meeting at the middle school on Thursday evening, October 23rd, at 7:00 to get their questions answered “from the source”. This is a very important issue for the community so please make an effort to understand the various issues and the thinking behind the proposal. That’s so much better than relying on postings which typically include incomplete and inaccurate information and simple speculation.

The school board has been doing a very good job in very trying circumstances over the last eight years. They have been focused on keeping the district operating in a very fiscally responsible manner and they have been keeping their word to the community on making the current excess levy last its full term. They’ve been targeting maintenance dollars where it is really needed the most, while still trying to formulate a facility plan that addresses the district’s long term needs. They’ve learned from past referendums. They assembled a committee of local expects (engineers, facility managers, public safety, etc) that went through these buildings from top to bottom and made recommendations based on the deficiencies they found. They’ve sought community input.

After all that I think the board has earned an element of trust by now and they deserve some gratitude. More importantly I think they deserve OUR efforts to get informed. Our kids deserves that as well.

PS. As far as that property goes, selling it wouldn't even make a dent in the cost of what's needed. Holding onto it for the time being as an investment and selling it at a later date, when the market conditions are optimum, would seem to make more sense.

They can put line items on

Aura_Lee — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:30:46 -0500

They can put line items on the ballot but will just spend the money on whatever they want to. Sell the 80 acres!

I appreciate Roger's opinion

BigBoy — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 12:58:02 -0500

I appreciate Roger's opinion and I too agree we can do some incredibly wonderful things, even when times are tough. With that said, I still feel I cannot support this proposal for the school improvements.

I have continuously heard about how bad of shape our HVAC systems are at the High School and how much it costs us to operate there. Can we not just fix those systems? Someone else had posted a comment about what does 15-20million do for us? This is surely a more swallowable figure. We are in hard times and we are already taxed to the gill and that isn't going to go away any time soon. However, most people want to do something for our schools, just not all of the wants, maybe just the needs. Four million to improve the football field and track facility, to me is a want, not a need. We seem pretty competitive this year on an East to West football field, why does it need to be redone to run North and South? What other items can $4,000,000 give us? If we fix the HVAC and the operating costs go down (has anyone provided us with what we estimate that savings to be?) what are we planning on doing with the savings? I read in the Leader that the expansion of West will be run like an independent school. What does that mean? Another expensive principal? Do we need 5 principals? If we do any construction, anywhere, why is there no talk about consolidating our district offices uptown, into our schools? Wouldn't that save money? We wouldn't need the extra copy machines, admins, infrastructure etc.. What are we doing to reduce costs? I am sure there are things going on, but are they being communicated to us? It may help selling these renovations, if we knew the school board was serious about cutting costs and that they already have plans in progress to do so. I also think we need to seriously look at the economic benefit of holding the land to the South for future growth. Last I looked, our enrollment is trending down. Keep hiking the taxes in Hutchinson and our population will trend down. The number one reason I hear from people who work in Hutchinson, but do not live here, are the taxes keep them out. I agree that a good school system will attract families to our community, but it won't be the number one priority and it will certainly come after the availability of good paying jobs and the cost to live here. Besides, what makes a good school, good is it's academic ratings, sports only appeals to a small percentage. It is unfortunate that this small percentage of people who put sports first, is driving the direction. I don't want my taxes going up more than $1000 a year for the next 20 years, but I do want to do something. Why can we not get this number down to a reasonable amount that gives us the needs. Maybe one of our professional football players that have come from Hutchinson will come back and donate some money towards our sports programs.

Maybe the answer is to put multiple line items on the ballot and let each item be voted on, without dependencies. Put a line for 20 million for HVAC, 30 million for re-construction, 4 million for the sports improvements and see what the public wants. I agree that the costs to do anything will continue to increase and the longer we wait, the more it will cost. It would be nice to have better, scalable options. If this does not pass, I hope they can come back with a proposal that ONLY addresses the absolute needs, in a timely manner and we can begin to do the improvements we need. I think it will take a lot of convincing of a lot of people that all of these improvements are absolute needs.

LETTER: Tough economic times for a new school?

Melissa Sullivan — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:01:54 -0500

From Roger Krantz
Hutchinson

There seems to be great concerns per the proposed bond issue for Hutchinson School District 423 due to our present tough economic times. As one who feels Hutchinson needs to have the best education facilities for its growth and betterment, I found myself reflecting on how the now called "Park Elementary School" was built back in the 1930s during the Depression.