News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The Sisters School Board agreed by a 3-1 vote in their February 5 meeting to propose a $3.5 million bond issue to pay for the construction of eight classrooms at the elementary school and remodel the old intermediate school site for seventh and eighth graders. An additional $2 million will be proposed for maintenance projects.
The board reaffirmed that conclusion and decided that expanding the elementary school and relocating the seventh and eighth graders to the current administration campus site was the only viable option open to the district.
Charles Warren, assistant board chair, insisted that this time the issues would be clarified.
"The board was really blurry on the issue of all-year school," Warren said. "Many people in the community thought (in November) that voting for the expansion of the elementary school meant voting for year-round education."
The long-range planning committee concluded that instituting year-round education was a vital part of the plan to expand the elementary school facility. Without YRE, the committee concluded, an expanded elementary school could be out of room in as little as two years at current projected growth rates.
In proposing the bond this time around, Warren stated that the board was not committing the district to year-round education. He said that the issue would have to be decided at some point in the next few years.
"The community will have to decide between a middle school and year-round education," Warren said. Another board, he said, would make that decision. In the meantime, Warren said, the district should create an implementation plan for YRE in case the district decides to adopt a year-round calendar.
Either way, Warren said, building classrooms at the elementary school is necessary to relieve the district's space problems. Bringing seventh and eighth graders back to the elementary school facility would relieve crowding in the middle/high school building which is currently over capacity.
In the long-term, the space would be available to accommodate growth in the elementary school population.
"Money spent at the elementary site is virtually all well spent," Warren noted.
Director Harold Gott voted -- with regret, he said -- against the proposal because it does not reduce the $2 million maintenance portion of the bond.
"I think the voters told us that we need to resharpen our pencils," Gott said. "I honestly believe that the voters are best represented by reducing the $2 million amount."
Board Chairman Bill Reed abstained from the vote because he owns property on two sides of the site that is proposed to one day house a middle school.
Although he said it was "a long reach" to conclude that he could gain financially whichever way a vote went, he wanted to avoid the possibility of a conflict of interest. Reed did participate in discussions of the issue.
Board members concurred that they will have to work hard to sell the bond to the voters. They believe that the board did not carry its message clearly and well to the voters in November, a view that was supported by Sisters teacher Lora Nordquist.
"Lack of education, including on the part of our own staff was crucial to the defeat of this bond," she said.
Director Jan van den Berg cautioned that, even if this new bond passes, the district still faces looming growth problems.
"The community has to realize that this is not the final solution," van den Berg said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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