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Pocahontas Area: Expanding

Kramer:?School nearing capacity, addition planned

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson Pocahontas Area High School is planning to add additional classroom space next year. Superintendent Joe Kramer said the building is nearing its capacity.

POCAHONTAS — Pocahontas Area High School could see some more space as the school board begins the process of planning an addition.

Pocahontas Area Community School District Superintendent Joe Kramer said the school board is just starting the planning stages.

“The school board is also in the process of the initial stages to add four additional classrooms onto the high school facility,” Kramer said, “with the goal of having classrooms completed by the end of December of 2017.”

The reason the school is planning on the additions is because of space.

“We’re really sitting pretty close to capacity,” he said. “Additional classrooms will provide flexibility in scheduling that would make it a lot easier for everybody.”

Kramer said construction will hopefully begin within the next few months.

“The architects are working on conceptual drawings and we’re currently trying to move to getting bid documents completed,” he said. “Hopefully yet this spring we are going to bid for this project.”

The addition planning is part of what Kramer called a “productive and busy past year” for the Pocahontas Area Community School District.

“We are beginning our second year of partial-day sharing with Laurens-Marathon (Community School District) grades nine through 12,” he said. “And this year we are in the process of negotiating with Laurens-Marathon a sharing agreement that would extend to whole-day sharing.”

That sharing agreement was approved by both school boards in January, which will allow Laurens-Marathon students to attend school in Pocahontas.

In terms of activities, Kramer said the school has seen an increase in the amount of student interest in extracurricular clubs.

This past year, the school started a new club called Interact, which Kramer said has been very successful.

He said it’s a club that helps others.

“They’ve done some fundraising to assist students in need,” he said, adding the Interact members also took the lead on a fundraising effort for a school staff member suffering from terminal cancer.

“We had a local fundraiser for one of our custodians who was dying, Russell Shields,” Kramer said. “They’ve taken the lead on that.”

Kramer said Shields has since passed away.

But it’s not just people associated with the school that students have supported, it’s also members of the community.

“They’ve also done some volunteer work with some families, as far as being able to help with yard work this year as well,” he said.

Other students have led successful volunteer programs as well.

“This last summer, the end of last school year in the spring of last year through the summer and into the fall, we had a group of students who worked on a school district garden,” Kramer said. “And produce for that was used for part of the food service program within the district this year as well as during the fall.”

Besides that, Kramer said the Pocahontas Area Community School District has been “just maintaining the status quo.”

In addition to the plans for more classrooms, the school also will be making some changes to its bus fleet.

“The district is also beginning to expand its bus fleet into the propane market as well,” Kramer said. “We’re adding an additional propane bus coming up here in the coming months.”

They tested a propane-powered bus in the district last year and were satisfied with the results.

“We’re slowly looking at expanding the number of buses operating on propane versus diesel,” he said.

Still, the district has had to deal with some challenges.

One of the biggest ones is wrapping up a renovation project at Pocahontas Area Elementary School, which was mostly completed last year, but Kramer said there’s still a few issues.

“It’s basically trying to complete the HVAC, heating, cooling and controls portion of the project,” he said. “We’re still having challenges with that.”

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