That project is nearing the start of the bidding process, according to district Superintendent Kevin Kruse.

“We’ve started the bidding process,” he said. “We’ll be opening them at our Jan. 21 school board meeting.”

The current locker rooms are small and cramped, and during games, visiting girls teams have to use a small locker room. The two halves of the boys locker room is divided by a shower area, which means both visiting and home boys teams have to share the space.

The new locker rooms will be adequate and the boys and girls locker rooms will be about the same size.

Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
South Central Calhoun High School in Lake City will soon be starting construction work on new locker rooms.

Other planned improvements include work at the elementary school in Rockwell City.

“We’ll be building a new student service wing and a new entrance,” he said.

That part of the building will feature support services for staff.

They also plan on adding a gym to the elementary school.

“We currently have a multipurpose area with no gym,” Kruse said. “It’s used for physical education, lunch and indoor recess. With the new gym we’ll be able to have a lot more flexibility.”

Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
South Central Calhoun High School math teacher Donna von Glan works on grades recently in her plant filled classroom. Von Glan was the KCIM Broadcasting 2018 Teacher of the Year.

They’re also hoping to add some classroom space there.

“We’re hoping to add three classrooms to the elementary facility,” Kruse said. “They’ll be designed as multipurpose rooms.”

Enrollment is also up in the district.

“Each grade usually has three sections,” he said. “We have four sections plus in our pre-K. It’s a nice problem to have.”

Overall, he said, there’s increase of about 40 students overall.

A new classroom has also been added to the curriculum at the elementary school.

“They added a SMART room,” he said.

Students get to experience a variety of sensory inputs and work with various objects to increase their left brain/right brain interactions.

“All the students work at different stations within the room,” he said.

Kruse is grateful for the voters in the district approving the PPEL bond.

“It feels really good,” he said. “They approved it on the first try.”

Kruse said he’s proud of the way the campaign was conducted.

“On the night of the election, we had people thank us for running a positive campaign,” he said. “I just wanted people to make an informed decision.”

He’s also very proud of the academic success in the district.

“We’re two points above the state average on the ACT,” he said. “Iowa is already a high performing state. It speaks well of our staff and our students.”