Lisbon and Springville Schools superintendent Autumn Pino and Mount Vernon superintendent Matt Leeman presented a status of the schools at a Mount Vernon-Lisbon unit of the Linn County League of Women Voters “Learn with the League” event Thursday, April 24.

Both superintendents gave highlights of their districts and how they perform on standardized tests and enrollment numbers.

A portion of Leeman’s presentation reiterated Matt Thede’s presentation at the school board the following night of ways that the schools excel in extracurricular activities (see story on page 2).

As for challenges for the districts, Leeman said one of the first challenges he was faced with in the beginning of the school year was updating the school’s fleet of vehicles – spending roughly $565,000 this year alone on new buses and Suburbans, as a number of vehicles were no longer usable by the district.

“There was a period we had to borrow a couple buses from the Solon School District, and we worked fast after that to replace the buses,” Leeman said.

Another topic people might be hearing about from Mount Vernon Schools is that they are completing a quantitative traffic study this spring.

“The district did a concept study on if they added an additional outlet into the district in the future,” Leeman said. “They never completed that quantitative study, and we’re doing that now to see what bottlenecks we may be able to address for our traffic issues at the district.”

Leeman said that study was moved up in importance when there was a medical emergency at the school before spring break that emergency responders had a hard time responding to.

He estimates any new road to the district will come at a $2 to $3 million cost for the needed infrastructure.

Another expense for the district is dealing with the asbestos shingles on the exterior of the Mount Vernon Middle School. Some of those shingles have started falling off of the building, and the district is looking at abating the removal of those tiles. Cost of abatement alone will be $300,000, and new metal exterior to the building could be north of a million. Leeman hopes to tackle this project without bonding for the district.

Pino said Lisbon is a school district that is known for doing a lot with very little. While they have a staff size that is 200, roughly 75 of that comes from LECC staff.

When it comes to areas that Lisbon excels, Pino reiterated the school, despite having a proud tradition in wrestling, has a lot of other things they are excelling at. She pointed at the fine arts programs, including the band, who are having an exceptional year, and Business Professionals of America qualifying for nationals again.

Lisbon recently renewed their Physical Plant and Equipment Levy for another 10 years.

Pino also spoke a little more on why the partnership with Champions for childcare was made.

“School districts are not built to be running a business like a child care center,” Pino said.

When the Lisbon Early Childcare Center was constructed in the 1990s, enrollment at the time was in the 70s.

Lisbon’s childcare enrollment now is 230, with roughly 70 to 92 kids on waiting list.

“We want to keep our childcare system sustainable,” Pino said.

Pino said she expects there may be some rough waters ahead for childcare when Champions takes over, as they’ll have a different business and management model that staff adapt to, but employees will be getting paychecks every other week instead of monthly as happens now. Wages for staff will likely increase.

Leeman and Pino were both familiar with Champions due to work in other districts – Leeman from his time at Clear Creek-Amana and Pino because of the connection of the organization with Springville.

“This is another opportunity for us to partner and provide quality childcare commitment to our area,” Pino said.

For Lisbon, the completion of the career and technical education wing, new weight room and lobby remodel were completed this year.

Both Lisbon and Mount Vernon will have a number of legislative changes coming in the next school year as well. A new cell phone bill will need to be in place by July 1, a proposed civics exam for students will need to be implemented next year, and state supplemental aid still hasn’t been set, but is looking to be at 2 percent this year.

One of the changes in the property tax bill proposed by the legislature will impact management funds for school districts, not allowing schools to spend more than 180 percent of the fund over a three-year average.

“That will be super limiting to school districts who do not use that fund,” Leeman said. “That may put some expenses back on the general fund.”

Both Leeman and Pino focus their energy worrying about implementing those plans and procedures after they go through the legislature anymore.

A questioner asked about the impact of private schools receiving ESA monies.

Leeman said that not having a private school in the area dulls that impact for the district. The 2 percent for state supplemental aid is a bigger impact on to budgets, as it barely keeps up with inflation or increases for teacher salaries and benefits each year.

“They continue to keep asking us to do more and more for students with less and less by giving us more unfunded mandates,” Leeman said.

A questioner asked about the number of students taking Kirkwood classes at each school.

Pino said Lisbon is somewhere in the top three for Kirkwood students in the area, and they have a great success rate of students earning college credits before they graduate.

“We have a number of students who are able to take college courses or even earn associate’s degrees before graduating,” Leeman concurred. “Beyond that, we have students who get experiences before they graduate to determine if a career field is for them. That saves them a lot of money.”