Mar. 8—CLINTON — The Clinton School Board on Monday awarded contracts to the businesses that will be starting work on Whittier Elementary School's playground at 1310 Second Ave South.
The project originally expected to be completed prior to the start of the current school year was prohibited from moving forward due to delays in obtaining new playground equipment. Plant Services Director Paul Dotterweich, however, confirmed the equipment is now in their possession and that concrete work, awarded to Clinton Engineering in the amount of $110,750, could begin as early as May 1.
Existing pieces of playground equipment that are red and black in color, Whittier Elementary School Principal Brian Kenney said Wednesday, are only a few years old and will remain after completion of the project. Equipment green and tan in color that is over 20 years old, though, will be replaced.
The wood chips where the equipment will sit will be replaced with a rubber surface. At a cost of $134,317, Innovative Sport Surfacing, a playground equipment supplier out of Mentor, Ohio, will complete the installation of the surface.
In other matters, Clinton School District Chief Financial Officer Cindy McAleer led the board in a 2023/2024 budget workshop.
"When we went to the voters for the new high school with our general obligation bond, we said we would not raise our rate by 16.822 [percent]," McAleer said in review of the District's overall tax rate history.
The 16.50% rate prior to voter approval of the bond in March 2020, equating to $2.70 per $100,000 in assessed property value, raised the tax rate to approximately 16.75 percent during the first year that the bond went into effect in 2021, and it has since declined.
"Most school districts see a valuation increase of two to four percent [growth] per year. Ours in the last six years has been four percent total in six years," McAleer said. "That's pretty impressive to look at what we've been able to do with our tax rate."
The Clinton School District may differ from other districts as well in that a bill addressing discipline in schools that passed through the legislative Funnel Week this last week does not affect Clinton's School District, Superintendent Gary DeLacy said following McAleer's presentation.
HSB 206, among other proposed regulations, requires school districts, nonpublic schools, and AEAs to provide a copy of Iowa Code 280, which allows teachers to put hands on students to defend themselves or other students from injury, to teachers when initially hired and annually with contract renewal. It requires teachers who witness a student injury to call the parents by phone within 24 hours, and allows a teacher to remove a disruptive student from a classroom under supervision of an SRO or administrator.