North Greene continues to mull over Field House Project

By Editor | December 30, 2024 |

By Carmen Ensinger

The North Greene School Board continues to discuss the concession/restroom issue, which has now been officially named the Field House Project, at their December meeting. Originally, the intent was to also include a weight and locker rooms.
“We engaged Omni just briefly to get some rough ideas of what we were looking at,” Board Member Casey Nell said. “After more discussion, I think what we took away from our last meeting with them was, ultimately does it make sense to put the weight room and locker rooms this far away from the school when we know we have a need for it to be closer.”
Several ideas were thrown out at the meeting with Omni.
“One idea brought up was going off the east side of the old gym,” Nell said. “Through some discussion for the need of more locker room space that led us back to the field house project and concession stand storage and new bathroom which we know we have to do.”
Nell said it was decided to do a basic setup out at the football field in the same footprint as had been discussed before.
“We are looking at a 40×40 metal building and are trying to avoid moving the transformer to save ourselves $20,000,” Nell said. “We would have storage in the back as well as new bathrooms. I also believe we are looking at a covered front awning and a concrete sidewalk leading around to the bathrooms.”
Nell said they have not received any quotes yet. One benefit coming off the east side of the gym would be additional classroom space as well.
Superintendent Jackie Kuchy said she learned the district received a $15,000 grant from the Tracy Foundation for the mental health program.
“Of this $15,000, $5,000 will be used for the sensory room at the elementary, $5,000 for the therapy dog program and the remaining $5,000 to allow continuation of services during the summer for those who see our mental health coordinator during the summer,” Kuchy said. “We do have two other grants in for capital projects with the Tracy Foundation but we won’t find out about those until February.”
Kuchy asked the board to approve joining the Schools of Illinois Public Cooperative (SIPC). Membership is free and available to any public or private school district, non-profit and units of local government.
“While there is no cost to be a member, there is a new piece of the program where they provide a site assessment which can tell you things about the upkeep of your building, talk about staffing to meet your needs, train custodial staff, etc.,” Kuchy said. “They also do bidding for you to get a better deal on supplies. It is something several other districts have joined. With it, you don’t have to go through the whole bidding process, you can engage one entity they work with and you don’t have to go out for bid. It is something we can revisit in January after you look into it more.”
The district is looking at purchasing or leasing some new buses for next school year, specifically with Midwest Transit, which the district met with last week.
“The buses we currently have were purchased with ESSER funds,” Kuchy said. “We are losing trade in value the longer we keep them. We have some things to weigh if we are going to buy used buses. We are going to have to replace at least a portion of our fleet.”
Right now, a priority is the 54-passenger lift bus.
“There are a few of those that he said he could get his hands on,” Kuchy said. “I heard a nearby school district was getting ready to trade theirs in.”
The big question is what approach the district is going to take – are they going to purchase or lease to own.
“We could try to purchase the lift bus outright like we did a couple of years ago,” Kuchy said. And then look at leasing at least part of the route buses.”
The district is running four routes and two special education routes. Their current buses were purchased in 2020.