Sweet Home School Board members were told that the school district has an opportunity to qualify for $12.2 million via a state matching grant if residents pass a bond measure next year that won’t increase their current taxes.
District Business Manager Kevin Strong said the district has a narrow window of opportunity to apply for an Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching (OSCIM – pronounced “Awesome”) grant that would pay for classroom improvements to Sweet Home High School.
Board members unanimously agreed to allow district staff to apply for the grant by the deadline of Dec. 15, which Strong said would be a step toward determining whether the district would be eligible for the funds. Dustin Nichol voted remotely and Mary Speck was absent.
Strong said the measure would replace aging flat-roofed classroom sections of the school, built in the 1970s, with roofing more appropriate for Oregon weather.
“Those buildings were built as economically as possible,” he said. “We’ve made a lot of improvements except for the classroom areas at Sweet Home High School.”
Also, Strong emphasized, improvements to the school would include security measures.
“We have a very porous campus,” Strong told the board, noting that there are more than 40 entrances to the school. He cited a recent example of a man recently discovered in the high school woodshop one morning.
“It’s easy for people to come on campus,” he said. “It’s easy for students to skip third period, and come back for fourth period without going to the main office.”
Short of fencing the high school campus “like McClaren (Youth Correctional Facility in Woodburn)” he said later, “that’s not really a positive learning environment.
“When the campus was designed and built, it was a different era. At that time the goal was to build a school for a growing town as affordably as possible. They did it and it served us pretty well for over 50 years.”
The improvements he’s talking about would be intended to last through the end of the century, he said.
In a written report to board members, Strong listed some suggested improvements that include: weather-resistant roofs and classroom construction; eliminating “outdated” modular classrooms, removal of asbestos; improvements to CTE, music and physical education facilities; traffic safety improvements including a dedicated bus loop, and establishing a financial literacy lab for students.
OCSIM grants, along with other state funding, have allowed the district to make significant improvements to the Junior High and the elementary schools, while other nearby districts are struggling with buildings that needs significant improvements and voters that have not approved bond requests to make fixes.
Strong said the district’s current $4 million bond levy, approved by voters in May of 2016 and set to be paid off in early 2029, would be extended at exactly the same rate residents pay now.
He told board members that the district would have to submit an application for the grant by the Dec. 15 deadline to find out “whether or not we would be guaranteed an OCSIM grant if the bond passed.”
He said that, while Sweet Home’s level of poverty makes it a prime candidate for OCSIM funding, “there is ongoing discussion that the funding formula may change in the next biennium to rely on data from a statewide school facility assessment.
“If that change occurs, it would like prioritize districts that have not placed the same emphasis on keeping their facilities in good condition as Sweet Home has.”
That, he said, is why the district needs to act now.
He said that if the guarantee of money is there, the district should move forward on a bond request.
“We would only go out if we’re guaranteed funds. That was the case in 2017, when we received a $4 million OCSIM grant that helped with the junior high renovation project. This time the opportunity is much larger.”
Board member Rachel Maynard asked whether all the money would go to the high school.
Strong said that would be up to board members.
“My recommendation would be that we make improvements, especially for safety and security,” he said.
“There’s more that we can do at all our schools, so I would certainly say that we would look at the needs at all of our schools.”
He reminded board members that the district has installed security vestibules and made seismic improvements to all its other schools over the past decade.
At the high school, he said, in addition to classroom safety, “bus, vehicle, pedestrian safety, if we could improve that – the last thing we would ever want is a collision with a person. That’s part of safety as well: Doing what we can to make Sweet Home High School a much safer, secure, better learning environment.”
In other action, board members:
- Heard a report, including a video from Oak Heights Principal Todd Barrett about changes at the school, including incentives used to encourage attendance and positive behavior.
- Heard a report, including a video, from district Counselor Stefani Brown about the Oct. 6 Stand Up to Bullying Day. Various activities and efforts to heighten awareness on the subject include a Buddy Bench at Foster, an assembly at Holley and the Stand Up to Bullying video, she said.
- Heard a warning from Sean McNellis, the district’s network analyst, about the dangers of phishing. Ellis said phishing attacks are nearly constant and provided a packet to board members explaining the dangers.
- Heard from Martin that district enrollment dropped by 10 students between Sept. 30 and Oct. 30, to 2,193, which he attributed in part to 10-day drops in which high school students have to re-enroll after missing more than 10 days of school.
- Heard a report from Strong that, a third of the way through the 2025-26 fiscal year, the district has spend $453,00 more this year than last at this time – a 6½% increase, which Strong attributed to higher PERS rates, higher salaries and wages, and increased insurance and other costs.
- Heard a report from Maintenance Supervisor Josh Darwood on a truss fracture that has been detected in the Crawfordsville School Gym. The school building in Crawfordsville is occupied by the Linn-Benton-Lincoln Educational Services District, who noticed that “the ceiling tiles didn’t look right” in the gym, Strong said.
Darwood said a structural engineer assessed the situation and advised that the gym be closed. Darwood said it would cost an estimated $500,000 to $750,000 to replace the “bowstring truss.”
“It’s hard, from my viewpoint, to justify throwing a lot of money
Board members briefly discussed potential uses for the building, including whether it could be sold. Strong said the school property actually consists of a number of tax lots, which would make it tricky to sell. Some include conditions that, he said, date back “a century or longer.”
“There would be a lot of research to do about that,” he said, adding that the school district “definitely recognize that it’s been a central building for the Crawfordsville community for decades, and so we’d want to recognize the community as well in trying to determine what to do with that.” - Agreed unanimously to support Lebanon School Board member Clyde Rood for Oregon School Boards Association Position 10, which represents east Linn County, in OSBA’s upcoming election.