Scoreboard donation a start, but still work to do in NOSD

A donation of $100,000 received in full last month for a new football field scoreboard gets the Northern Ozaukee School District part of the way there.

However, improvements to the interior and exterior of the district campus — including the multi-million dollar reconstruction of its track and outdoor maintenance shed — are still needed.

Members of the district Building and Grounds Committee toured the schools on Monday, seeing areas renovated through the 2018 building referendum and others still in need of work.

The elementary school bathrooms that date to the 1960s were singled out as needing a complete remodel, as well as several locker rooms that need new floors and a district wide fire alarm upgrade along with the installation of energy efficient lights.

These projects, along with others, represent the work the district is putting into its 10-year plan that is being updated this year, Supt. Dave Karrels said.

“These are comprehensive planning documents that let us make sure we’ve kept up with all deferred maintenance and future needs,” he said, adding that work also needs to be planned to keep up with growing enrollment and year-to-year class size shifts.

Last month, the School Board accepted the last of three donations totaling $100,000 from Linda Mellowes representing the Charter Manufacturing Co. Foundation that will cover the cost of building the new scoreboard in summer.

The current scoreboard is “very, very old,” Karrels said. “It’s outlived its life.”

Work is still needed on the district’s track and its outdoors maintenance shed, the funding for which was scrapped from November’s operational referendum.

School officials have noted the track is cracked, chipped and lifted in areas, making it unsafe to host a track meet since 2016. The maintenance building is also dilapidated and has a dirt floor.

During planning for the ultimately successful referendum, the School Board decided to trim the $2.4 million required for the projects from the question to appease voters that had twice before rejected a $6.8 million ask.

Board Vice President Dan Large disagreed with the removal of the projects and said the board was simply “kicking the can down the road.”

“The track needs to be addressed and the maintenance building needs to be addressed,” he said at the time.

Karrels said the two projects remain a major priority, but a path for funding is not clear.

“(The track and shed) have been the key priority areas. This is a step in the right direction with the scoreboard,” he said.

Overall, the district’s facilities are in good condition, Karrels said, a testament to the efforts of the Building and Grounds Committee and Facilities Director Kent Schueller.

“We hear it so much, how well kept the facilities are,” he said. “The committee’s focus is how we can complete projects well and in a fiscally responsible way.”

A $14.95 million 2018 capital referendum funded updates to classrooms and technical education spaces, the construction of a new cafeteria, auditorium renovations and improvements to outdoor facilities.