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$79.9 MILLION BOND ISSUE: District buildings showing signs of age
Plan will address safety, security and infrastructure concerns evident at schools like Oakdale
April 14, 2015
Monday, March 9, the District 66 school board unanimously approved a $79.9 million bond resolution. The resolution, which is detailed on this district website, will send a mail-in ballot to district residents that are registered to vote in Nebraska. The mail-in ballot will be sent the week of April 20 and district residents will have until May 12 to vote. To provide district residents, including any 18-year-old Westside students that have registered to vote, more information on the vote they are about to cast, we took a tour of Oakdale Elementary.
If you walk into Oakdale Elementary School, you immediately notice something. More accurately, you notice something missing. With a main office hidden 75, or so, feet from the entrance, that missing piece is a safe, secured entrance.
If you walk into the Oakdale mechanical room, you also notice something. More accurately, some things. The boilers are ancient. The main electrical switch is rusted. The water main is in bad shape — the building engineer had to do a sophisticated equivalent of duct-taping to keep it working just this year. To make things more exciting, the mechanical room is also one of the school’s storm shelters.
The list of problem areas goes on: the building has inefficient single-pane windows; accessibility for disabled students meets the letter of the law but isn’t “ideal,” according to District 66 consultant Rob Zimmerman; moisture damage is evident even in classrooms; there are gaps in the building envelope, which has allowed mice to get into the building during classes; the plumbing is inefficient; pick-up and drop-off areas are creating queues that run to Center Street access roads; building air quality is not ideal; and more.
Oakdale is one of three district schools — Sunset and Swanson are the others — that would be rebuilt under the school board-approved $79.9 million bond issue if the majority of district voters vote “yes” on a mail-in ballot scheduled to be sent out the week of April 20.
Oakdale was first built in 1871 and subsequently renovated heavily in the 1950s. Its boilers, which provide the heating and cooling for the school, were installed in the ’50s. Boilers usually last 30 years, according to Zimmerman. Furthermore, the boilers run on a two-pipe system; the system can only run either hot or cold water, not both. If a surprise temperature change occurs, the school cannot switch its system to accommodate the change.
The boiler is one of many outdated parts of the school. Pipes, the unit ventilators, toilets, sinks and more fall into that “outdated” category.
“All the materials used to build a building have a lifespan, and we’re past that lifespan,” Zimmerman said.
These issues aren’t limited to just Oakdale. In 2012, the district, led by Superintendent Blane McCann, hired DLR Group to do a complete audit of its buildings and learning spaces. Some of the results of the study, according to McCann, were surprising.
“What came out of that study, really, was we’ve been able to look at safety, security and infrastructure,” McCann said.
The aging parts of Oakdale and other schools came back in the safety, security and infrastructure categories.
If the $79.9 million bond is passed by voters, the rebuilt Oakdale would address all of these issues.
A new two-section school with a security vestibule as an entrance, a new gym, a new cafeteria, improved drop-off and pick-up areas, dedicated storm shelters, improved Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, dual-pane windows, more efficient plumbing and more would be built.
Zimmerman said, by the end of the construction period for the bond, the district is expected to save about $100,000 in energy costs — a 16 percent savings — and see cost reductions for plumbing. Also, maintenance costs will decrease.
The district will also be focusing on historical preservation and making sure the schools fit their neighborhoods. The district will not be taking a “cookie cutter” approach according to McCann.
“Each school will have its ability to design,” McCann said. “Obviously, they’ll have constraints, some of those being costs…It’s not a blank check, so we’ll have those constraints and look through that.”
At Oakdale, this means the music room, which was the original Oakdale schoolhouse built in 1871, will be preserved in a number of ways.
If the bond is passed, Oakdale would be the first school rebuilt. Construction would begin in the spring of 2016. Students would go to class at the Westside Career Center during construction.