In six weeks, residents of the Ames School District, Iowa, will be asked to vote on a bond referendum regarding whether $110 million in general obligation bonds should be issued to build a new high school. But also included in the bond referendum is language asking for a portion of the funds to be put toward additions for Edwards, Mitchell and Meeker elementary schools.
Since the decision by the Ames School Board to put the two projects together on the same April 3 bond referendum, a question from the public has been why renovations are needed for the three schools, after all of Ames' elementary schools were recently renovated or rebuilt through a $55 million project starting in 2011.
According to Director of School, Community and Media Relations Eric Smidt, the answer is all in the numbers.
Elementary school enrollment has increased every year since 2011, he said, with the district seeing a total of 381 new students coming in since then. A closer look at enrollment data shows Meeker now has 72 more students, and Edwards has 118 more over the same time frame. And those climbing numbers are not expected to stop, Smidt added, especially as residential areas near the elementary schools are blossoming with new homes.
"It's really not all that complicated all of it has to do with the enrollment in our elementary schools over the last six, seven years," Smidt said. "Ultimately, because of our enrollment, we are going to have to address this at our schools."
As it stands, many of the classrooms at Edwards, Mitchell and Meeker are already at their capacity. Edwards, which, according to school board documents, has 411 students currently enrolled, has only 17 spaces left. Mitchell has 304 current students, and has room for about 25 more. Meeker has 465 students right now, and has the most spaces still available, at 35.
During a Wednesday morning school board facilities committee meeting, Superintendent Tim Taylor said Edwards is the school with the greatest need for expansion, followed by Mitchell then Meeker.
If the bond referendum passes in a few weeks, the expansion project would add six new classrooms to each school. The additions would not only boost the overall capacity of Edwards, Meeker and Mitchell, but also help ensure that young students can attend the elementary school closest to their homes, according to Smidt.
"Our goal is always to get the students into their area elementary school," he said. "We do have a handful of families that would naturally go to Meeker and are now going to Sawyer. That is not our goal. If you live in the Edwards neighborhood, that's where you're going to want to go. That is always our goal."
Of the $110 million in funds up for a vote, the elementary school project is expected to require about $5 million. Smidt said there is a possibility that the funding source for the project could change, depending on whether or not the state Legislature opts to extend Iowa's 1 percent sales tax, which could be used for the elementary school additions instead of general obligation bonds. Nothing is set in stone right now, and the decision will ultimately be made based on which option makes the most fiscal sense for the district.
"Ultimately, we're going to do what makes the most sense with taxpayer money," Smidt said.
Although Smidt said he does not yet know what the timeline for the elementary school renovations will be, because they were each constructed with built-in options for later additions, the work should be able to be completed quickly.
"We're not looking at these things taking a year, or two years," Smidt said. "These can be done reasonably quickly, just because all of that stuff is there. They were built to be built on again if needed."
