Fieldcrest plans to move ahead with building repairs

MINONK — After a decade of discussions and referendum votes about closing school buildings, constructing a new campus or choosing which school to renovate, the Fieldcrest district has a plan.

Fix the buildings through health and life/safety projects.

Fieldcrest School Board this month voted 6-0 with Heather McKay of Minonk absent to instruct architects to prepare bid specifications for multi-million-dollar repair jobs at the middle school in Wenona and the high school building in Minonk.

While previous estimates on repair, safety and accessibility needs at the middle school and high school hovered in the $28 million range, a life/safety study posted in December on the school website put the costs at a little less than $25 million. That’s up to $13.4 million at Wenona, $11.4 million at Minonk.

The board instructed architects from the Ottawa architecture firm Basalay, Cary and Alstadt to prepare bids by Feb. 26 for both projects and for a plan on how to do the projects in phases.

“If we worked to address all of our issues at once, we would have to displace students,” said Rockwell. The district doesn’t have enough room to take all students from one school and put them all into another school.

The board on Feb. 26 can approve the specs and start seeking life/safety and working-cash bonds for portions of the work, said superintendent Kari Rockwell. The district’s debt maximum at this time is approximately $20 million, and Rockwell said architects will prepare bid packages for various separate projects.

The district always had the option of making the repairs through life/safety bonds, but district residents and board members disagreed over proceeding with new construction or safety repairs.

The project taking place in phases will allow work to continue with minimal disruptions, Rockwell said. The goal is to have contractors approved and ready to go so when one phase ends, another can begin.

While students are in session, contractors can start on replacement and major tuck-pointing needs at both of the brick middle school and high school buildings. Workers can address significant electrical and plumbing needs at the two school buildings when students aren’t present.

During work at Wenona, students in the middle school will be moved to the three-story portion of the building that has not been in use. Then students will be moved back into the renovated section, and the district will have the three-story section demolished.

“There’s no reason to heat and cool a building you don’t need,” Rockwell said. “The district can indentify multi-year projections in enrollment and we’ll save millions of dollars (by eliminating the three-story portion of the building.)”

Rockwell said the Wenona projects should take two years and the high school projects will take three years, because the district has nowhere to move the high school students during the work.

Enrollment has been dropping steadily in the school district that formed in 1992 for students from Wenona, Toluca, Minonk, Rutland and Dana.

Previous superintendent Dan Oakley frequently noted that enrollment in the K-12 school district had been declining from more than 1,300 students in the early 1990s to just over 1,000 in 2017.

Rockwell put enrollment at 915 students recently, with an average of 65 children per grade level in kindergarten through sixth grades. Multiplying 65 by 13 grade levels, theoretically, puts future enrollment at 845.

If the district does not address its building issues, the state would begin to crack down, said Rockwell, with first steps such as banishment from participation in Illinois Elementary School Association or Illinois High School Association events, followed by losses in state funding.