By John McLoone
The Hastings School District is looking at a deadline of November 2022 for final project spending on a $48,600,000 bond issue. Many projects have been completed, and the school board put what should be the final touches on allocating the money at its meeting last Wednesday night.
The school board’s facility committee met last Monday night and recommended to the board five additional projects that will spend the remaining $3,054,683 under the bond issue. Superintendent Dr. Robert McDowell said that the deadline for spending under the bond issue is November 2022, and the final completion deadline for projects if March 2023.
Projects given the go-ahead with the remaining funds include:
•Moving the Alternative Learning Center into the high school. Projected cost would be $1,421,640.
•Putting new seating and tables in the high school lecture hall at a projected cost of $140,000.
•Fixing drainage problems at the baseball field. The cost estimate is between $12,500 and be done in the left field area that drains poorly.
•Resurfacing the middle school track with an estimated cost of $493,750.
•Making privacy improvements in high school team locker rooms, with a projected cost of $856,563.
Doing all that work, would result in a deficit in of $57,270, but Board Chair Kelsey Waits said that the school locker room project would be the last one funds are allocated for, so the budget for that would be shaped to fit the money available.
See ALTERNATIVE LEARNING Page 4 $200,000, depending on how much work needs to be done in the left field area that drains poorly.
•Resurfacing the middle school track with an estimated cost of $493,750.
•Making privacy improvements in high school team locker rooms, with a projected cost of $856,563.
Doing all that work, would result in a deficit in of $57,270, but Board Chair Kelsey Waits said that the school locker room project would be the last one funds are allocated for, so the budget for that would be shaped to fit the money available.
See ALTERNATIVE LEARNING Page 4 If other projects underway come in under allocated amounts, the district could fund technology improvements that are needed and replace building signage. “We’re coming into the final stretch,” said McDowell. “The facility committee is working hard.”
The plan for the Alternative Learning Center would be to build the center in the high school’s C Pod and move it into the building from its present location near the Hastings Post Office on Ramsey Street. That move would also save the district the $30,000 annual rent fee on that building.
“The ALC project is one we’ve brought up one or two times,” said McDowell.
The ALC would be built with its own entrance into the building, and planning was done with input from current ALC students.
“They wanted their own entrance,” McDowell said of the ALC students. “They wanted to enter the building without seeing the main entrance of the building.”
He said that the current ALC facility can’t accept more students and the capacity could double in the new space.
“There’s an opportunity to serve more of our Hastings students than we currently do. We’d double our size,” said McDowell. “I know this is a topic that concerns some, and it excites others. I think we’ve done due diligence to get feedback from students and staff. We have a solution that helps more Hastings students.”
Waits said she was concerned about the ALC moving because some students choose it because “they have left the high school for particular reasons.”
The input she heard from current students made her believe that the new ALC plan is sound.
“After hearing the input that they gave, I feel far more comfortable with this than I did before.”
“I’m having a hard time picturing what this will look like,” said board member Scott Gergen. “That’s a great thing that we’ll serve more of our students.”
McDowell explained that “C Pod, for all practical purposes, would become its own entity. It wouldn’t have bells ringing. It wouldn’t have the intercoms. It would really be its own experience for those kids.”
There would be once entrance from C Pod into the high school facility, and bathrooms would be located within the ALC portion.
“It would really be its own entity. It would be a building inside of a building,” said McDowell.
It also would allow easier access for teachers who teach in the high school and ALC currently.
The high school lecture hall work would have to be done in the summer, but it needs some TLC.
“The tables are bent. They’re in disrepair. The seats aren’t all functioning,” he said of the hall, located across from the high school office.
For the baseball field project, digging would have to be done to decide what needs to be done in a low spot in left field. It could be a simpler fix or a major one, depending on what the problem is.
The decision was made for the middle school track to just have its rubber surface replaced. A complete rebuild would have cost well over $1 million, board member Lisa Hedin said.
“At this point it probably makes more sense to replace he rubberized track,” she said. “What we’re proposing here is we’ll resurface it and assume the foundation is strong. We’re proposing we accept that risk.”
The locker room plan is for privacy improvements.
Hedin said the projects can be put out for bid in December.
Enrollment The district’s enrollment
