Bond Referendum

In the fall of 2013, district residents approved a $34.2 million bond referendum to bring significant improvements to the district’s facilities. One of the most exciting aspects of the referendum is how much it will improve and extend classroom spaces to accommodate changes in how students learn in the 21st century. In fact, $19.8 million of the work focuses on the need to create 21st-century learning spaces. A hallmark of 21st century learning is today’s easy availability of information. In the past, a primary role of schools was to transmit information to students. Small classrooms, lectures, and desks in neatly lined rows served schools well. In the 21st century, the challenge for schools is very different. One small computer or smartphone holds infinitely more information than any traditional textbook, lecture, or library of the past. Teachers now teach students how to access, sort, filter, and use the information that could otherwise so easily inundate them. Classroom spaces must allow students to collaborate, communicate, design, create, invent, solve problems, and think critically. This is the essence of 21st-century learning.

The referendum includes nearly $1 million earmarked for electrical infrastructure upgrades and to provide ample access to electrical power in all classrooms. Another $2.7 million is dedicated to classroom upgrades across the district. Some but not all classrooms were upgraded in various ways in the past, therefore, the plan is to bring each classroom up to a common district standard with regard to such things as lighting, doors, wireless coverage, projection, electrical access, heating and ventilation.

Technology has transformed the modern workplace, and it is important our facilities keep pace. The project is funding an addition on the southwest corner of the high school that will be devoted to applied arts and technology. The STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts & mathematics) addition will include labs for hands-on work in areas such as advanced manufacturing, robotics, electronics, computer science, graphic design, applied math, 2-D and 3-D art, computer-aided design, and digital music.

High school libraries have been shifting away from the traditional image of a quiet study space with shelves of books to more vibrant, interactive, technology-based centers of information. In order for the high school library to become even more of a hub for teaching, learning and research, the layout within the current footprint will be reconfigured. The envisioned “Library Learning Commons” will make use of wasted space, condense the shelving, and create more adaptable spaces. It will include seating conducive to study and quiet reading, ample access to technology, and multi-use rooms for small group meetings, trainings and presentations.

In addition to the initiatives described above, the referendum includes many other improvements to instructional spaces. Among these are renovated middle school science labs, a black-box theatre and modern presentation center in the current high school red and blue rooms, and new, small flexible use teacher-student workspaces in the elementary schools.

Equipment for classroom upgrades and special function instructional spaces ( i.e., high school Black Box/TV Studio, Distance Learning rooms, Red Room lecture hall, robotics classroom, computer science suite, CISCO suite, high-tech manufacturing labs (wood, metals) must be addressed in the three-year technology plan.