HAMILTON - The Hamilton School District will be sending out ballots for a levy and bond request on April 14, 2023.
One school has seen every generation that has come through Hamilton over the last 100 years.
What was once a high school is now a middle school and the time has come for a new bond to build a new middle school.
“It’s more than outlived its purpose,” Hamilton School District Superintendent Tom Korst told MTN News. “This place is really run down and it’s hard to keep it up. The utilities on it are poor.”
What was once built for around 200 students now houses approximately 485 students.
There are two buildings on the campus of the middle school, the main building and the second building known as the pod.
The pod was once used as an area for several different things before the new high school was built. It was converted into classrooms to fit the growing population of Hamilton.
"You can tell that it is almost a warehouse type of structure with very thin walls for classrooms and poor lighting and poor ventilation etcetera,” Korst explained.
When you think of a classroom you might think of a room with a window that looks out to the outside, but the students at Hamilton Middle School can’t always do that.
“It’s pretty amazing that we’ve used this building to teach kids for that many years. There’s no windows, there's no green space here,” Korst said. “The experience for kids learning here is a compromised experience, it has been for a long time.”
The new site for the middle school would be built at what is commonly known as the Westview property.
"It’s one of the solutions we’re looking for — going to Westview. It’s on the river and it’s a beautiful piece of property,” Korst said. “We’re really excited about the prospect of our kids being able to have open space and a better learning environment.”
Currently, when middle school students go out for recess, they go to what students call the prison yard. The basketball court was built on top of the old high school parking lot which is also next to a busy street in Hamilton.
Korst noted that there is also little security for the buildings.
“There’s terrible security here and we’re worried about security more and more all the time. Two buildings separated and trying to protect our kids when you have two different buildings from somebody getting is really, really difficult. I think we’ve done a really good job with what we have.”
Korst explained why officials aren’t looking at remodeling the current building.
“Remolding here is very costly. It’s considerably more costly to remodel here. And you’re still stuck with a footprint that is about a third of what we actually need,” Korst said. “It would be a really bad return on investment for the community to actually remodel, and I think we’d suffer for years to come."
Another question some people might be asking is what would happen to the middle school if the bond passes.
“Couldn’t this be community housing one day? This is a great spot to address a housing need,” Korst said. “I really don’t think there’s any other purpose other than returning it to some housing which we really need. The main building has lots of options.”
The timing of the bond is intentional to keep building costs down as inflation and building costs rise.
“Montana is becoming more and more discovered, and prices are going up here and we’re afraid that the inflationary part building -- this sort of construction is going to be harder for us to address as we go on,” Korst said. “So, we do feel a sense of urgency to do something now.”
The new middle school is expected to open in the fall of 2024 if the bond request passes. But a new middle school isn’t the only aspect of the bond.
“We’re hoping to go to the taxpayer now and not go back for many, many, many years for a building request,” Korst explained.
Additional information about the bond and levy request can be found at https://www.hsd3.org/page/2023-hsd3-bond-and-levy.
