Opinions, concerns and ideas were shared by 14 people, including the mayor of Chenoa, during Thursday night’s special meeting of the Prairie Central Board of Education.
The meeting started with around 30 minutes of public comments from attendees. The vast majority of comments were related to the Facility Improvement Plan proposals for Prairie Central schools.
Concerns included a lack of community involvement in the process, potential impacts of closing PC Primary West in Chenoa, and bussing in the district.
Suggested ideas included placing grades 5-8 in one school, maintaining neighborhood elementary schools, and looking to take care of the current buildings before building something new.
After the public comments, Prairie Central Superintendent Paula Crane shared specifics about what work needs to be done on the different schools in the district.
This includes tuckpointing, replacing windows, work on plumbing and mechanical systems, work on lighting, temperature controls, fire alarm controls and installation of air conditioning.
For the last portion of the meeting, the board held a discussion regarding the “Facility Improvement Plan” proposals. The majority of the time was spent covering finances of the proposals.
The board looked at how long Phase One of a phased “Facility Improvement Plan” should be, what they should set as a bond amount for a plan, what to do regarding a tax rate to help with money for a plan and different ways to approach how they might borrow for and spend money on a plan.
The meeting adjourned after much discussion between board members on the finances of the “Facility Improvement Plan” proposals.
This was the second special Prairie Central Board of Education meeting this week pertaining to the facilities plan. On Tuesday, BLDD Architects presented a Facilities Studies Report to board members in the PCHS library. Several other meetings are planned throughout July.
