Referendum to Decide Goshen School Project
By Adam Nussbaum, Goshen News, Ind.
Jun. 24–A referendum during a special election will likely decide the fate of Goshen’s proposed new intermediate school.
Members of the Goshen Board of School Trustees Monday decided to withdraw its petition to the Department of Local Government Finance for permission to build a new fifth- and sixth-grade building and complete other remodeling work.
Goshen school officials had also planned to build a middle school cafeteria and remodel the high school. About $30 million of the $41.9 million cost is for the new intermediate school.
Goshen Community Schools Superintendent Bruce Stahly told board members that even if the DLGF OK’d the project, construction would exceed the allowed cost under stipulations related to proprty tax circuit breakers. This means that it would still need to pass through a referendum.
Both the school board and DLGF officials were waiting on a study, conducted by the accounting firm Umbaugh and Associates, that would flesh out the effects the property tax bill will have on schools, cities and counties.
Although that study isn’t finished, enough has been done to determine that with the new circuit breaker, “schools would lose more money, the city and county would lose more money,” Stahly said. “If you add more to taxes, and the city, school and county is already being hit by the circuit breakers, then they’ll be hit even more.”
Therefore, the project would need to pass through a referendum, which would allow it to fall outside the circuit breaker, Stahly said.
After determining to withdraw their DLGF petition, the board discussed scheduling a 1028, or public hearing, during which school officials would present the project in detail to the public. No hearing was set, but the board hoped to schedule it sometime in August.
According to a proposed project timetable, the referendum would not appear on the November general election ballot, but in a special election in January 2009.
According to Stahly, if a 1028 hearing was held by July 1, it might be possible to include the referendum on the Novemeber ballot. However, “we wouldn’t be ready” for a hearing by July 1, Stahly said.
Action plan
The board also approved a corporation-wide action plan to improve performances of four subgroups of students not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress, or benchmarks part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The student subgroups not meeting AYP are Hispanic, Limited English Proficient, Special Needs and Free and Reduced Lunches. Because this year was the second year the corporation failed to meet AYP, it had to formulate an action plan.
The plan consists of “probable causes, solutions and an action plan,” said David Clendening, executive director of elementary education.
“Vocabulary is an area we feel is most significant,” Clendening said. “We will be using the Marzano Group (an academic consulting firm) with background academic vocabulary in October, as our action plan says.”
The board also approved a motion to add a “no transportation zone” to the east of Goshen Middle School. The area is bounded by West Purl Street, South Main Street, West Plymouth Avenue and the Elkhart River.
If students live in this zone, they will not be provided with bus services, said Barry Younghans, executive director of secondary education and transportation. The farthest any would have to walk is nine-tenths of a mile.
High gas prices are one reason the corporation decided to extend the “no transportation zone,” Younghans said.
Projected costs of Goshen school project
–New intermediate school: $30,327,188
–Goshen High School performing arts addition: $4,722,000
–Goshen High School classrooms, office addition, renovations: $4,979,000
–Goshen Middle School food service: $1,479,000
–Project financing costs: $422,813
— Total: $41,930,000
More information is available at the Goshen Community Schools Web site: www.goshenschools.org
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Copyright (c) 2008, Goshen News, Ind.
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