Referendum planned
By Amber Cox
SPRINGFIELD The Board of Education has decided that closing its only school is not a viable option for the district.
The school board on June 21 heard the results of the feasibility study by Educational Information Resource Center (EIRC) on May 24 regarding increasing shared services or forming a send-receive relationship with either North Hanover or Chesterfield.
”I don’t know exactly what you got out of the feasibility study but in my estimation having read the study, listening to the explanation and listening to the public comments it seems that none of the options that were evaluated were feasible,” Interim Superintedent Joseph Miller said.
EIRC’s study revealed that increasing shared services would call for another study with specifics from the board for which areas they would like to share with neighboring school districts. Send-receive relationships with North Hanover and Chesterfield would be possible but there could be capacity issues in Chesterfield and North Hanover could see a threat to its Federal Impact Aid if it were to accept Springfield students.
The board was in agreement that keeping the school open is the only option that fits the community but in order to do so the 72-year-old school will need some renovations.
The board hopes to hold a referendum during the upcoming school year to address the school’s needs.
”To me the study said, without a question, that, no, those options aren’t feasible as methods of substantially saving money and increasing the efficiency of the district,” Mr. Miller said. “In the absence of that and certainly based upon an hour and 20 minutes of public comment, 100 percent of which was pro-keeping the school district pretty much the way it is, I think the only logical conclusion is we should to everything we can to continue the existence of Springfield Township School as it currently exists.”
Mr. Miller said that for the safety and welfare of the students it is important that a referendum be passed to make significant improvements to the physical condition of the building.
”There’s no way we can afford to do that using the regular annual budget where we’re capped at 2 percent, which equates to $54,000. There’s no way we can do anything with that amount of money,” Mr. Miller said.
Mr. Miller said improvements would include the roof, windows, and heating and ventilation systems.
”We need that if we are going to continue to exist in this building,” he said.
Board member Lisa Giovanelli said she agrees that the community definitely wants to keep the school open.
”I’m all about keeping the school but I agree with (Mr. Miller) that with the 2 percent we could never fix what we need here,” she said. “Nobody wants to do a referendum but I think, unfortunately, it’s something that we need to look at.”
The board approved Mr. Miller to put out bids for an architectural company to prepare a proposal for items that would be presented through a referendum. Referendums in the district to improve the building have failed in December 2009 and March 2010.
Board member Dennis Schmieder said the school needs to be very cautious when presenting the referendum to voters.
”We’re going to have to do a very delicate dance in so far as we had a failed referendum and then it was possible that the school was going to close and it’s not and now we want to do another referendum,” he said. “You can see where people might be receiving mixed messages, so we really need to be extremely circumspect of how we go about this. We ask for what we need and nothing more.”
Board member Jennifer Steel agreed with Mr. Schmieder and said the board needs to be careful to “avoid the appearance of things being done for cosmetics sake or upgrading just for the sake of upgrading.”
”We need to do the basics on the school to make it safe for the kids,” board member John Ainsworth said. “We’re just going to make the facility a safe facility for the children and go from there.”

