By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

The board voted to pursue a new elementary school last August, and it will vote later this month to formally put the issue on the ballot in May.

The $15 million bond issue would include about $9.4 million to build an elementary school for prekindergarten through sixth grade on Broken Bow's northeast side, about a half-mile north of the Jennie M. Melham Memorial Medical Center.

The other $5.6 million would go toward upgrades at the district's middle/high school. Tentative plans include new heating and air conditioning, fire sprinklers and the renovation of the auditorium into a center exclusively for performing arts, said Superintendent Timothy Shafer.

The project is intended to resolve roofing, ventilation, accessibility and fire code problems in the district's two current elementary schools, Custer and North Park, board member Michelle Zlomke said.

The new school would include a full-size gym, three playgrounds and room for a special education preschool program. It also would consolidate library, kitchen and storage space between the two schools.

"The kind of things that we've been tucking into corners ... will have their own space now," Zlomke said Wednesday.

The district began moving toward a new building after a 2006 study by the Lincoln architectural firm Bahr Vermeer Haecker found that $7.8 million would be necessary to rectify serious problems with heating, ventilation, fire codes and handicapped accessibility in the district's four main buildings.

A community facilities committee recommended a more expensive new middle/high school last spring before other residents toned that down to the elementary option.

Still, some who attended Tuesday's meeting said they'd prefer to see the district pursue less expensive repair options, rather than building new.

Sheri Palmer, who lives on a farm southeast of Broken Bow, said the board has confused repairs it needs to make with upgrades it would like to have.

"Just because there's a leak in the roof or they might have to tear out a wall, that doesn't mean you have to build a new school," she said Wednesday.

She's also concerned about the burden to taxpayers, especially rural ones.

The bond would cost 30 cents per $100 in taxable valuation. That total includes two existing bonds for the high school/middle school roof and employee health insurance whose payoff would be included, Zlomke said.

Matthew Haumont, who ranches north of Broken Bow, said that while some repair issues are necessary, residents need to consider whether they can truly afford the costs of a new building.

Though the costs will hit rural landowners harder than those in town, Haumont said the bond shouldn't be made into a city-country issue.

"It will affect everyone in this community, from Main Street businesses to farmers and ranchers to retirees," Haumont said Wednesday.

He said the district must also consider whether its declining enrollment and the town's stagnant population will be enough to support the project decades from now.

But Mary Vaughan of Broken Bow, who supports the project, said residents should view a new school as an opportunity to revitalize their community and provide a flexible building as education changes over the coming years.

Times have always been hard and money has always been tight, she said, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson. But she said this vote gives people a chance to consider how high of a priority a quality education is to them.

For Vaughan, it's a top priority.

"Education is the heart of a rural community," she said. "(Broken Bow) can say, 'We believe in a quality education. We're going to provide a quality facility.'"