CC district members make trip preparations

Staff report

Residents visiting U.S. schools on behalf of the Charles City Community School District have a lot to think about.

As members of the 21st Century Schools Taskforce tour schools in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and one school as far out as San Diego, they should be taking pictures of all kinds of spaces they see, Superintendent Dr. Dan Cox said. Information will be shared with the Board of Education and BLDD Architects.

Site visits will take place between March 29-May 11. Taskforce members used Tuesday afternoon’s meeting to establish teams visiting a few of eight different school options, and confirm date changes for upcoming meetings.

“I want you to photograph the innovative, engaging, inspiring, empowering spaces, the useful ones,” Cox told the group of district staff and community members. “I also want you to look for what’s not useful. If it was designed and they built it, and then they discovered, ‘hey, we never use this,’ we want to know so that we don’t replicate that and build something that doesn’t get utilized.”

The group of 11 also reviewed footage of a Feb. 27 Board of Education meeting, when an Estes Construction representative reviewed potential renovation projects and costs at the Charles City High School. The initial estimates place a total facility renovation at between $13-19 million.

“I didn’t know it would cost that much to just work within that footprint, knowing there could be a desire to take part of that footprint away and make some new spaces,” Cox told the group.

The group discussed the conditions of different high school wings, including the media center/art studio wings, the three “circles” of high school classrooms and the career technology shop behind the current cafeteria. The most recent wing was added in the 1970s, and the district has already replaced parts of the roof throughout the building.

The taskforce will meet next on April 5 at 5 p.m. in the Charles City Middle School’s fifth grade learning studio.