Fort Cherry holds town hall to discuss building project
Karen Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Fort Cherry School Board and administrators hosted a town hall meeting Monday to discuss a building plan for the elementary and high school buildings.
Fort Cherry Superintendent Dr. Jill Jacoby discusses a proposed building plan during a town hall meeting Monday.
A possible $4.3 million building improvement project drew comments during the first of two town hall meetings Monday hosted by Fort Cherry School Board and district administrators.
The hall meeting was held to provide district officials with an opportunity to gain feedback from district residents.
Dr. Jill Jacoby, superintendent, and Jessica Drylie, business manager, provided a detailed overview of the school district’s financial situation and a summary of the proposed capital projects, which include a proposed air conditioning and ventilation project that comes with a price tag of as much as $3.2 million.
In September, Fort Cherry was among school districts in the region who released students early because of extreme heat.
According to Jacoby, the district’s elementary and middle school/high school buildings, both over 30 years old, are aging and in need of repairs.
Since 2014, the school district has replaced a hot water boiler, upgraded the district’s water line and replaced the roofs at the elementary and high school buildings.
The proposed capital improvements projects, which will be completed over a three-year span, include replacing four ovens in the elementary school cafeteria and two ovens in the high school cafeteria; upgrading lights in both buildings to LED; updating carpets in both buildings; replacing both buildings’ public address systems; upgrading district parking lots and the driveway; and addressing the air ventilation system.
The school district currently has an annual bond payment of $255,000 until 2034.
If the building plan is approved, the school district would take on an additional annual bond payment ranging from $142,000 without air conditioning to $178,000 with air conditioning, through 2041.
“The school district has really been strategic in our planning of fixing what has to be fixed,” said Jacoby. “The three things you have to have are heat, water and a building roof. We’ve done those things and we’re at the next step of what else can we add to the buildings.”
Residents voiced both support and opposition to the air ventilation proposal.
Said district resident Jessica Hixon, “I would ask maybe we put this off one year and calculate how much the temperature has been high. It feels like a little bit of a knee-jerk reaction to one hot year.”
But Danielle Burfield, whose daughter is a first-grader, commended the district’s plan to implement air conditioning.
“She comes home a sweaty mess, sweltering. I fully support the idea for moving toward air conditioning,” said Burfield.
The school board will decide later this month if it will move forward with the building projects plan and, if it does, which options will be included.
It will hold a second town hall meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 10 at the high school.