EUREKA — The Eureka School District held a community meeting last month to discuss solutions for aging school facilities and safety concerns.
The school district has not passed a bond in more than 20 years and leaks, mold and crumbling walls continue to raise issues.
“We’ve failed at four bond attempts since that time, the last one being a year ago, but we still have a need to get those things done,” said Eureka School District Superintendent Joel Graves.
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The core section of Eureka Middle School is more than 100 years old. Graves said the building is reaching its tipping point.
“Things that have deteriorated over the years from ground leakage and things like that, you know rotted floors, things that we’re always trying to maintain and address but it seems like they are just creeping up all the time," Graves told MTN.
Graves noted the middle school is completely out of compliance for ADA regulations.
“Currently we don’t have any kids in the middle school that are in a wheelchair, but I have two coming in the next couple years, including next year, and so I’m going to have to spend some significant money to fix or put a new wheelchair lift station in that building because it just wasn’t designed for that.”
Eureka Middle School Principal Jonson England said he’s constantly moving teachers in and out of classrooms when new issues arise.
“Our main boiler room actually backed up with sewage and one of our classrooms is right next to our boiler room and was definitely not a great environment to have to be sitting through, so we had to move most of our classes out of that classroom for a handful of days and moved up into our library until that was able to get taken care of,” said England.
Graves said it’s not just the middle school, but also the elementary school and career and technical buildings that need major upgrades.
“Several of the systems are outdated, the plumbing, the electrical, the roofing system," Graves said.
Graves added he plans to propose a bond measure in front of the school board in March, which if approved would go to a vote this coming November.
The district is holding a second community meeting on Thursday, Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. in the middle school library to gather more input.
“I felt like from our first community meeting, there was a definite consensus that something needs to be done, there’s not a definite consensus on what needs to be done and so that’s what we are trying to do is to get to that consensus on what we need to do moving forward,” said Graves.
