School facilities discussed further at trustees meeting

Bonds and updating the school facilities were two of the main topics at the most recent Schulenburg ISD school board meeting held May 20.

Financial Advisor Christian Merritt, from Government Capital Securities, gave a general overview of the process of obtaining new facilities and how to accomplish that with the funds of SISD.

“In a more general sense, there are really three different options for financing for the school district to finance a project. One of those is obviously a bond,” said Merritt. “Another one is on the maintenance and operations side in a maintenance note. A maintenance note can only be used for maintenance and renovations.”

He let the audience and the board know that, generally, the financing rule is that you “cannot increase the footprint of the existing building.”

“The last option is the ‘silver bullet’ for financing new construction on the M and O (maintenance and operations) side,” he said. “That is called a time warrant. It has a limit of $1 million and has a maximum term of 15 years. It limits what you can do in terms of new construction.”

One or two of those options may not be enough for SISD, but Merritt let trustees know that they can use a combination of the options to get what they need to do to complete a project.

After Merritt’s extensive presentation, Robert Gadbois of Owners Building Resource, LLC, the firm hired to plan the facility updates, was back to further discuss what he and Superintendent Lisa Meysembourg had done since April’s meeting. Gadbois and Meysembourg have given presentations to the community and still have many more scheduled, so they are not ready to bring and release anything back to the public yet.

Meysembourg did inform the board that Gadbois had created a survey that they are planning to give to the public for feedback both in an electronic version powered by the online survey creator SurveyMonkey, and a hardcopy version to be used for numerous ways of receiving the public’s feedback and input.

“Really what we are doing is throwing ourselves out there to get input on what they (the public) feel before we make any major decisions. I want you (the board) to feel confident in what we are doing and making decisions that the community can support,” said Meysembourg.

Gadbois agreed with Meysembourg and reiterated that the survey will allow both the staff and the community to go through everything that has been discussed, to scrutinize it and give them feedback.

The online survey has plans and pictures and includes all of the proposed improvements so the taker of the survey can zoom in and see what is involved in each one of the programs.

“It is for full disclosure. We have included specifics on the budget and are asking the public for their feedback,” said Gadbois. “If people do or do not support the projects, we have some comment boxes with every project listed, where they (the public) can go to a comment box and give us their feedback.

“This survey gives us an easy way to summarize the data and give feedback from the staff and the community and how they feel about things,” he said.

The survey includes projects such as the secondary campus improvements, fire alarms, fieldhouse, band hall air conditioning and the Ag/CTE building and the budgets that go along with the projects.

“One thing that I would really like to do is to make sure that people are hearing the whole message and understanding what is going on with the various projects,” said Meysembourg.

She believes that the public touring the facilities and viewing the presentation pieces that go along with the survey that she and Gadbois have been making are equally important so that people truly understand what is going on at the school before they take the survey.

School board President Shannon McBride, stressed the importance of the school.

“It is very important in this whole process to remember that school is one of the most vital entities that a community has. It is something you take as kind of like your house,” said McBride.

Meysembourg indicated that they will conduct focus group presentations within the next month at the school. These will include senior citizens, FFA supporters, Young Farmers and businesses that they will host. They are also considering putting inserts in the Schulenburg Sticker for the public to complete and send in as well.

The meetings/tours would allow the visitors to see the facilities while being able to ask questions and receive answers.

Meysembourg ended the discussion with saying, “It is a fact-finding mission.” Schulenburg will be working vigorously to get the information about the renovations out to the public and reach an understanding with the individuals in the tax-paying district.

All of the action items were passed unanimously.

The extension of the depository contract with Fayetteville Bank was passed and the immediate implementation of Senate Bill 149 was also granted by the board.

Senate Bill 149 provides senior students who fail one or two End of Course exams an alternate means to still graduate on time. This was not the case before, but this new bill rescinds the previous, and various work samples and a meeting with a graduation committee can approve the student and the selected student can then still graduate.

The Board then went into Executive Session. The following actions were approved after the closed session:

• Britina Pesak, assistant principal, Secondary, was extended a two-year administrative contract;

•Amber Barber was extended a change of position from a teacher to district counselor;

• Mark Weber was extended a one-year probationary contract for band director/teacher

• Victor Camarillo was extended a one-year probationary contract for Secondary teacher;

• Gabriel Rodriguez was extended a one-year probationary contract Spanish teacher.