Round Three: Polson to pursue building bonds

Voters in Polson will see a bond issue on their ballots again this spring, as the high school and elementary districts take a third run at improving four aging buildings.

“The biggest difference between this one and the last two is this one is community led,” said Superintendent Mike Cutler in an interview last week.

The other significant difference is cost: The bond proposal has toppled from over $60 million in 2019, to around $49 million in 2022, to this year’s proposal, which comes in just shy of $40 million.

Cutler credits the School Improvement Committee, formed last fall, with encouraging the school board to pursue another levy. Members include board members Devon Cox, Joanna Browning and John Mercer and community members Shauna Rubel, John Laimbeer and Becky Dupuis. Cutler, principals Jon Gustafson, Kristin Wilson, Andy Fors and Kipp Lewis, and curriculum director Tom DiGiallonardo round out the roster.

Their first priority, he said, was listening to taxpayers who said the previous efforts were too costly. “So we cut 20% right off the top.”

School safety is also at the top of the list, especially after an outside company recently rated security at the buildings as “less than poor.”

Another objective is to enhance career and technical training for high school students “so they can go right into the workforce.” Those classes and studios would be housed in a new two-story wing with 12 classrooms, which would eliminate the need for nine modular structures that currently serve students.

In fact, if passed the two bond measures will save the district around $85,000 a year in rent, utilities and maintenance by removing its 11 modular units and bringing students all under the roofs of their respective buildings.

Finally, as a cost-savings measure, the committee looked at alternative construction materials, especially for the high school addition. “If the high school bond passes, that building will be metal fabricated much like the Boys and Girls Club,” said Cutler. “It’s much cheaper than bricks and mortar.”

The quest to trim the bond budget was helped considerably by an infusion of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. Initially, the 2019 bond aimed to replace heating, cooling and ventilation systems at the middle school, Linderman and Cherry Valley. But ESSER is financing those fixes, including upcoming replacement of the WWII-era ship boiler that heats Cherry Valley.

The district has paid off all of its outstanding debt, and secured more than $500,000 in donations toward the improvements, provided the levies pass. That amound will be subtracted from overall costs, said Cutler.

Other budget-trimming measures include the decision not to move grade 5 from the middle school to Linderman, nor to move second graders back to Cherry Valley. Both those changes, which were contained in last year’s bond request, would have required adding 10 to 11 new classrooms to each school.

Instead, by keeping grade levels the same at each building, the district can add fewer classrooms overall. Cherry Valley, constructed in 1963, would get around $8 million for a new library and music room, four classrooms, areas speech therapy and special education, and new and upgraded bathrooms.

Linderman, at 75 years, would get three extra classrooms and a new serving kitchen, plus a music room, library, breakout rooms for students requiring individual attention, and restroom upgrades. The price tag there is about $7.9 million.

At the middle school, the district’s newest building, the kitchen is the focus because it supplies breakfast and lunch for students at all four schools. The $7.3 million price-tag would also expand the dining area and school commons and renovate bathrooms.

The high school, built in 1972, will be on the ballot for $16.6 million. In addition to adding 12 classrooms, the renovation would reconfigure the entry to make it handicapped accessible, remodel bathrooms and make some existing classrooms more functional.

Improving security at all four schools is a priority goal. Cutler says a Missoula-based company, McKinstry, conducted a safety audit last fall and rated all four buildings as “less than poor.”

“What we have to address first and foremost is school safety,” Cutler said. “Our door locks, our hardware in our buildings are as old as our buildings are.”

He said a $500,000 grant a few years ago paid for a new surveillance system but it didn’t upgrade the doors and locks. Since neither federal nor state governments provide money for school safety, security or maintenance, districts must turn to local taxpayers, he added.

“I can’t sit here and say I’m comfortable with the security of our schools,” he said. “It would be irresponsible of me not to do anything about it, and the only way I can do anything about it is with the help of the community.”

He says the committee and board are working on strategies to better inform voters in the three months between now and the election on May 2. “The biggest thing the committee wants to do is to let people to know what the deficiencies are because a lot of them just don’t,” he said. To that end, the public can expect a steady flow of information to appear over the next three months.

The committee also hopes to engage more registered voters – only 46% cast votes in last year’s election – and register new voters.

Cutler, who took the helm at the district in 2021, had shepherded both Townsend and Philipsburg through successful bond elections. He was disheartened by the last go-around, in which the elementary failed by just 44 votes and the high school went down by 242 votes.

He noted that placing the district’s future in the hands of voters is a stressful undertaking. “It’s not a lot of fun but it’s part of the job,” he said.

“But I’m happy to go through this process if it gets us a secure school with secure entries and a school where we don’t have three groups of four and five kids out in the hallway learning, and we don’t have people in closets doing work,” he said. “Then, I’m all about it.”

The superintendent describes the latest bond iteration as “nuts and bolts. This is it – we have nowhere else to go.”

The board held a special meeting Monday, Jan. 30, to discuss the language for the bond resolutions, and finalize the terms at its regular meeting Feb. 13. Mail ballots go out the week of April 12-17 and must land back at the Lake County Election Office May 2.