Letter to the Editor: School in serious need

As Superior’s newest superintendent, it is extremely important to me that this community understand that our schools are your schools. As such, I believe it is vital that we are transparent in the way we address District concerns and share information. To that end, I am writing to inform you of a serious situation that we are dealing with as the end of the year approaches. This past Wednesday evening at a Special Board Meeting, the Superior Schools trustees were presented with a bond levy proposal. The original proposal came about because the District received a $23,500 planning grant from the Montana Department of Commerce. The purpose of this grant was to perform an energy audit that would consider the long-term financial benefits of replacing the LP gas and fuel oil heating systems located in our three schools. McKinstry, the company that provided the initial assessment, found that the cost savings of an improved heat plant with other cost saving measures (like replacing windows, lights and control systems), would generate savings enough to pay for nearly 75 percent of the cost over the next twenty years, reimbursing nearly $1.3 million of the $1.8 million price tag.

Then February came. During the heavy snow/rain and subsequent thaws in February and early March, the Junior High building flooded twice requiring the extraction of somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 gallons of water from the floor of the building. As our maintenance team was cleaning, they found many issues that were concerning with regard to the relative health and safety of the building. The west exterior wall is sinking and separating from adjacent walls, a crawlspace in the shop filled with water and a concrete slab floor that was poured directly on plywood subfloor is beginning to sink. On top of this, twice this year the sewer erupted into the junior high floor drains requiring classrooms to be cleaned and sterilized. In addition, we have long known that the three heating oil furnaces (each 54 years old) are well past their life expectancy. To sum up, the junior high is failing.

In an effort to save money and maximize our DOC grant award, we asked that McKinstry change gears and alter their energy savings design to include a cost savings analysis of closing/demolishing the Junior High building and relocating the classrooms and industrial technology shop to the north and east side of the high school gymnasium. The resulting project numbers were final last Friday and delivered to us by McKinstry on Monday. Which brings us to today...

Superior School District #3 is asking the community to support the passage of a $3.99 million levy to sell building bonds at the June 3, State Primary election to build this junior high addition and to replace our ailing heating systems to bring them up to code. The cost to taxpayers of this project is estimated at being $83.39/year for someone owning a $100,000 home and $166.77/year for someone with a $200,000 home.

The District has created a Facilities Committee that has met and will be meeting in the next month to explore these issues. Membership on the committee represents a wide cross-section of our staff and community and these folks will be providing a series of public meetings over the next two months that will be advertised in the

Mineral Independent as well as the school’s reader board. I offer my sincerest apologies for the accelerated timeline for these projects, but after discovering the severity of this spring’s damage and considering the rapid decline of the building, it was the opinion of the Administration, School Board and the Facilities Committee that we needed to act and act now. I encourage your questions and hope you to see you when our committees meet in the coming weeks.

We appreciate your support of Superior Schools.

In Education,

Scott R. Kinney

Superintendent

Superior Schools