Should Ames Have Five or Six Elementary Schools?

When Ames Community School District voters go to the polls Tuesday not only will they select who should be on the school board, but also they will decide whether the board should spend up to $65 million to build three new elementary schools, re-open Roosevelt Elementary and make updates to Mitchell and Sawyer elementary schools.

Invest in Ames, a group in support of the plan, said it would promote neighborhood schools and give the district needed space. Demand 5 Schools for Ames, a group against it, calls the plan fiscally irresponsible.

“I think we should vote for it. We need to do something now. The plan is reasonable and it's the only plan we have,” said Sue Crull, a member of the Invest in Ames political action committee.

, and elementary schools would be replaced.

and would be updated and would be reopened.

“It's a nice balance,” Crull said.

The plan calls for building new schools in newer neighborhoods and renovating schools in older neighborhoods, she said.

If 60 percent of voters plus one approves the measure the school district's share of residential property tax bills are expected to increase about $1.56 more per $1,000 assessed valuation. That's because a .34 cent levy would expire and it assumes that the school board would use $1 million of the district's SILO (school infrastructure local option sales tax) revenues for property tax relief. At that rate, an owner of a home assessed at $100,000 would pay about $6 more a month in property taxes, according to a sheet prepared by Tim Oswald, managing director
 of public finance investment banking at Piper Jaffray.

If voters say "no," the board will have to wait until April 2012 to bring another issue before voters.

The opposition and creators of the Demand 5 Schools for Ames website, say that the six-school plan is fiscally irresponsible.

Rachel Jones, chairwoman for the Citizens for Responsible School Buildings political action committee which started the Demand 5 website, said the money spent on operating a sixth school could be put to better use.

“At this time Ames needs to have five elementary schools there are so many things our teachers are already doing without because of recent budget cuts that adding a sixth building is not advisable,” Jones said.

During a recent candidate forum, candidate said that operating a sixth school would cost $411,000 more annually, and that's money that could be used on programming. Jones said adding teaching assistants or before-and after-school care would be a better way to spend that money.

However supporters of the six-school plan say that adding another building doesn't mean the district will be spending $411,000 more because the additional two sections of students will need to be served somewhere and the costs of nurses, media techs, specialists, secretaries and administrators will still exist.

Some people are also against reopening Roosevelt, but Crull who lives blocks away from the school said INVISION architects declared the concrete building sound and said it could be renovated for less than the cost of a new building.

In a letter to the editor that first appeared in the Ames Tribune in April and was provided to AmesPatch, Crull wrote, “Saving an important part of our walkable, affordable downtown community and saving the taxpayer dollars, means that we should redesign and renovate Roosevelt as a 21^st century elementary school.”

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