The Lisbon School Board is moving forward on designing a new career and technical education wing at the school building. The board held a work session Wednesday, Feb. 23, where they discussed a range of projects that were left uncompleted at the end of the last bond project in 2018. Lisbon School Board members and facilities committee members Allan Mallie and John Prasil presented the items they had been looking into since December 2021, and highlighted which needed to be completed. While it was one of the last items talked about, the career and technical education classroom wing is the one that both Prasil and Mallie feel is a necessary investment for the district. “More than 20 years ago now, the school and community invested in the Lisbon Early Childhood Center, and look what that investment has done for the community,” Mallie said. “I see the investment in the CTE wing as an investment in the town, our children and the school for the future.” “People get excited whenever we talk about the CTE program and things like, if we can get welding going as one of the skills, we’re giving kids a chance to learn in the industrial arts,” Prasil said. One of the things Mallie notes is that by building designated wing and classroom space for the CTE, it also allows an investment for another teacher to start with additional classes to be offered in those arts and keep the district growing this program. One of the things that changed between when the last bonded building project was completed and now was that Lisbon had started a CTE offering in industrial arts, taking advantage of an old weight room space. Teacher Kirk Wischmeyer and community members have noted that the program has been a success in the first year, but the space for growing the program is currently stifled. Mallie and Prasil do not currently have costs per square feet for the proposed CTE wing, which they envision would be added to the south side of the building, connecting with the hallway near Brandon Horman’s classroom, but will continue to investigate the matter. Board members were asked to prioritize the list of 25 improvements the district is looking at by the March school board meeting. Lisbon school board member Abbe Stensland said the CTE project is one that she has high on her list. “The CTE wing project is the type of project you feel ready to tie up borrowing capacity for the next five to 10 years down the road,” Stensland said. “It’s a good project that touches a lot of students in this building.” Lisbon school board member Robyn Richey noted she loved the industrial arts classes she had taken in her own school growing up, and sees this as a way to support the trades, getting more students involved in them at Lisbon. “I feel strongly we should invest in this,” Richey said. Lisbon school board president Jen Caspers also agreed that the CTE wing was one to be explored. “It’s a great opportunity for Lisbon to show we invest in the classrooms and on education, and it’s an exciting item for the community,” Caspers said. “I think if we’re looking at the CTE, we definitely need to advance the air conditioning in the Lion’s Den and the bleachers for the balcony of the auditorium that were value engineered out of the other bond. We sold the building project to provide those two things originally.” Piper Sandler has evaluated the amount of money the district could leverage by bankrolling on SAVE funding, now that Linn County extended that tax and Lisbon renewed their revenue purpose statement in the 2021 elections. Piper Sandler found Lisbon can borrow up to $5.8 million for a project, but doing so would tie up the district’s funding streams for the next five to 10 years, as it would tap the district’s debt capacity. The board took no action, as this was only a work session, but discussion with engineers at a future work session is expected. The board will discuss the issue again at the March school board meeting. Other repairs/items discussed While talk cemented the CTE wing as a necessity, there were a number of other smaller projects that were also discussed that could become part of a larger scale project. The school is working on a number of smaller projects associated with the original bond project, including safety fixes and some completion items to the concession stand and press box. Other minor repairs include fixing the number of pebbles making their way back onto the track. One of the cosmetic changes that Prasil and Mallie felt needs to be addressed was the carpet in the music hallway. It’s one of the carpets that sees a high amount of foot traffic in the district, and is showing its more than 10 years use. The flooring could be replaced as soon as this summer. Lisbon maintenance director Rod Kelley said that taking the district’s last remaining boiler offline is high on his list of needed fixes. With most of the HVAC systems getting updated in classrooms in 2018, the boiler only provides heat for a number of spaces, including the crow’s nest, the old gymnasium, and a few areas that could easily be converted to HVAC systems. Taking the entire system offline would cost roughly $80,000, but would reduce Lisbon’s gas use significantly during winter months. Another safety side issue Kelley wanted to see addressed was installing electrical mechanisms to raise and lower the side basketball courts in the Lion’s Den. Kelley explained that the manual system the district uses is currently a safety liability, and that spending the $7,200 to motorize the four side hoops makes a lot of sense. That matter was one that had a timetable, as an electrician would be in the gymnasium to do work for the needed shot clocks to be installed on the main hoops in the next months, so setting up conduits for the electrical for the hoops would be appreciated. Cosmetics to a number of bathrooms and locker rooms were discussed, with new painting and remodels to some of those spaces probably necessary. The cost for new partitions in a number of those bathrooms was $1,500 per bathroom stall, which would put many of the remodels between $15,000 and $30,000. The biggest unknown expense was moving the fire, bell and phone to an addressable system, as opposed to a zone system. With an addressable system, fire departments would know exactly which sensor was triggering an alarm. The zone system lets them know a fire alarm is signaling somewhere in the building. The air conditioning at the Lion’s Den was folded into the potential costs of a new wing, as putting that HVAC system on a new roof built to hold that weight would reduce costs to install air conditioning in the Lion’s Den, where the original plans needed an additional $20,000 or more to house the unit on the current roof. There was also a long discussion on kindergarten classrooms needing access to a bathroom closer to their end of the building. Kelley said building a new bathroom in multiple classrooms would add a substantial cost, as that would entail adding multiple water and sewer lines, as well as taking a good chunk out of many classrooms. Richey asked if it would be possible to add a doorway to the hallway to connect a kindergarten classroom with a bathroom used by the other kindergarten classrooms. Kelley said that would be worth looking into, but his concern is if opening that classroom restroom in that manner would need it to be ADA compliant and, if that were the case, would require the bathroom to be larger. Replacing flooring in the old gymnasium to turn the space into a multipurpose room was discussed as well, noting that would help alleviate some issues of crowding in other portions of the building by having a space that could serve multiple purposes in the future. New band uniforms were also discussed. Hocking noted that uniforms can’t be paid for by SAVE funds, but they could be something the district tackles in the general fund after some of these projects are moved to SAVE funding.
List of projects being investigated by district
Carpet music hallway
Track apron/drainage
Practice field irrigation
Boilers
Locker rooms – JH and Varsity
New gym entry/locker rooms
Redo all bathrooms
Balcony bleachers
CTE-Class rooms
Old gym
Contiguous property
Fire/bell/phone system
Bus barn
AC in Lion’s Den
Stairwell repairs/updates
Electric gym hoops
Crows nest future use
Kindergarten bathroom
Kitchen bathroom/laundry
Drainage for playground
Classroom furniture
Nurses/office
Work area for AEA
Internal entrance to the LECC gymnasium.