OTHELLO — The Othello School District is preparing for a potential capital levy to address districtwide facility needs while continuing to study the long-term future of Othello High School. Assistant Superintendent Joshua Meek updated the Board of Directors on Sept. 14 on the work of the district’s Future Ready Schools Team. The team has examined facility needs and potential construction options for nearly a year.

The team expects to present a recommendation on a potential capital levy to the board in late October. If the board chooses to move forward, the current timeline calls for board action in November, a resolution by Dec. 11 and a special election Feb. 9, 2027.

The district has never run a capital levy before, Meek said.

“This is our next big information challenge to get out there,” Meek told the board. “What is this capital levy about? What does it include? What does it cover?”

Levy could fund projects throughout district

The potential capital levy would address near-term facility and infrastructure needs while the Future Ready Schools Team continues developing a longer-term construction plan.

The district has identified several categories of potential projects, including:

• Roof repairs and replacements
• Pavement and site improvements
• Elementary school playground improvements
• Gymnasium improvements
• Food service and warehouse facilities

The district’s Future Ready Schools information identifies those same categories as potential capital levy projects.

Meek provided the board with more detail on where some of the projects would occur.

“The high school is in essence barely touched with those capital levy priorities,” Meek said. The largest high school need identified so far involves roofing, particularly the 400 Building, he said.

“The roof is Lutacaga, the pavement is transportation, and a couple of other facilities,” Meek said. “Playgrounds are all of our elementary schools.”

The gym projects would primarily address needs at elementary schools without separate spaces for cafeterias and gymnasiums.

Sharing those spaces can interfere with academic programming when the facilities are needed for meals, physical education or other activities, Meek said. “The gym is actually an elementary gym issue for the schools that don’t have both a cafeteria and a gym because it interrupts their academic programming,” he said.

The district is also considering improvements to food service and warehouse facilities.

Meek said the district is trying to identify projects that will remain useful regardless of what happens with the long-term high school plan.

District wants to avoid spending money twice

The capital levy discussion comes as the district weighs two potential futures for Othello High School: modernizing or rebuilding the existing campus or constructing a new high school on district-owned property north of Othello.

The existing site has a lower projected cost. A new site would offer greater design flexibility and room for future expansion, but at a higher cost. The Future Ready Schools Team has not made a recommendation.

That uncertainty is influencing which high school projects the district would include in a capital levy.

Board member Isauro Pruneda expressed concern about spending money on buildings that could eventually be demolished if the district builds a new high school.

Meek agreed.

“We need to be careful about how we communicate that because we don’t want to give the impression that we’re asking you to invest in a capital levy to fix some things that five years down the road we may just plow over and rebuild,” Meek said.

The district’s preliminary project list therefore focuses relatively little on the high school. Roofing is one of the major potential investments there.

Meek said the board ultimately could decide whether to undertake individual projects depending on what happens with the long-term high school plan.

Existing high school could still have uses

Even if voters eventually approve a bond for a new high school, Meek said investments in portions of the existing campus could still make sense if those facilities continue to serve students and the community.

The Future Ready Schools Team is considering possible future uses for portions of the existing campus, including preschool, district operations, athletics and community programs. Other possibilities include removing older buildings and portable classrooms and consolidating district services.

“We’re going to use this building for a different purpose in the next five to 10 years as we prepare for a new high school if the board and the community decide that’s what we should do,” Meek said.

He cited the campus gyms as one example.

The district has discussed whether to expand the Husky gym because of its limited size. Meek said a major expansion might not make sense if the high school campus is eventually replaced. Maintaining the gym could still be worthwhile if the building continues to serve other purposes.

“Keeping the gym functional enough to be used for PE and community use and everything is probably a good investment to protect what’s already been there,” he said.

High school facilities already stretched

The longer-term Future Ready Schools discussion is driven by both the age of Othello High School and the existing campus’s ability to accommodate current educational programs and enrollment.

The oldest portions of the high school date to 1955 and 1956. The 600 Building was constructed in 1977 and has gone nearly 50 years without modernization or upgrades. Portions of the campus were modernized in 1999.

A facility assessment prepared by Architects West gave Othello High School a 74% functional adequacy score, rated “Poor.” Meek said that rating looks beyond the age of the buildings. It considers whether the facilities are appropriately designed for the school’s current needs.

“Think about if your house was designed for three people, but you have seven people living there,” Meek said. “It’s probably not very functionally adequate.”

At the high school, those concerns include traffic flow, an undersized lunchroom, the lack of a dedicated performing arts facility and inadequate space for some career and technical education programs.

The district projects enrollment of 1,512 students by 2031-32. That would put the school at 133% of its programmatic capacity, according to the presentation.

Meek said the problem is not simply future growth.

“We’re not growing at this exponential rate. That’s not our reality,” he said. “But even to serve the current students we have, if we took the current-day numbers, the facility isn’t large enough.”

Gym size illustrates the problem

The size of the high school gym has become one of the more visible examples of the campus’s limitations.

During the presentation, district officials noted that the gym has a capacity in the 700s while the high school serves roughly 1,500 students.

That means the school cannot bring its entire student body into the gym for an assembly.

“If you would have been on campus on freshman day, you would have seen that the freshman took up nearly the entire side of one gym,” Meek said. “Well, there are three other classes that also go to school there.”

The limitations affect more than athletics, he said.

“Things like whole school assemblies, you feel them in a lot of different ways,” Meek said.

Another district official told the board that the gym’s size affects school pride and the overall high school experience because the facility cannot accommodate the entire student body.

Meek said a recent staff kickoff provided another example.

“It felt full in there just with our staff,” he said. “That should be a pretty good indicator for us that it’s not quite the right size.”

The Future Ready Schools Team is also considering what size a future high school should be. Meek said several potential sizes have been studied, each with a different cost.

“There has been no recommendation that has come to you,” Meek said. “Just know that this particular bullet has a lot of discussion among our Future Ready Schools Team: What is the right size to really build a high school for our community?”

State funding could help future project

A future high school construction project could qualify for an estimated $55.47 million in state construction assistance through the School Construction Assistance Program, according to preliminary estimates presented to the board.

The estimate applies to high school options being considered for construction in 2030-32. It remains preliminary until a project receives formal approval.

Meek said the district wants to maximize the amount of state funding available for a local project.

“We all locally want to benefit from those tax dollars that go into the state coffers and to see it back investing in building schools in Othello,” he said.

However, the district would have to pass a local bond to access the potential state assistance.

“So as long as we don’t, we can’t touch that $55 million,” Meek said. The district presented a $51 million bond to voters in 2022, but it failed to reach teh 60 percent supermajority required to pass.

No decision has been made about whether to build a new high school, where it would be located or how large it would be.

Capital levy would come first

The potential capital levy is intended to address immediate facility needs while the district works through those larger questions.

Meek emphasized that capital funding and the district’s operating budget serve different purposes. Capital funds support facilities and infrastructure and generally cannot be used for ongoing salaries and benefits. Operating funds support staffing and daily expenses.

That distinction could become particularly important as the district discusses facility spending at a time when school districts statewide face budget pressures.

Meek said delaying facility work does not necessarily create money that can instead be used to retain staff.

“Construction doesn’t get cheaper,” he said. “And so the longer you kick that down the road, the more your facilities age. It actually probably gets more expensive as you go.”

The Future Ready Schools Team is scheduled to meet Sept. 22 and Oct. 6. Meek said he expects the group to be ready to present a capital levy recommendation to the board by late October.

The board is scheduled to receive another Future Ready Schools briefing on Oct. 12.

School funding options explained

There are differences in how school districts receive funding for different uses.

Levies: Educational Program & Operations levies help fund day-to-day operations of schools beyond basic education funding. These funds can be used for things like curriculum, technology, general maintenance, salaries, transportation, food service, etc. EP&O levies are temporary, running for 2-4 years before requiring voter renewal or replacement.

Capital Projects Levies: Raises tax revenue over a set period to pay directly for capital projects, such as repairs, roofs, playgrounds and other facility improvements. These levies can also be used for large investments in things like technology. Capital project funds may not be used for things like salaries, professional development, etc. Capital project levies typically expire after 2-6 years.

Bonds: Bonds are for building. These are longer term funding measures that allow school districts to borrow money to refurbish or replace school facilities, or to build necessary new facilities. Bonds run for much longer periods, 20-30 years typically. Districts can refinance the debt over time where doing so may lead to savings.