Those who live in the Aplington-Parkersburg School District will have the opportunity to vote on the usage of $16,500,000 in general obligation bond funds for improvements in the district.
Superintendent Travis Fleshner says the plan is made of two key pieces: refurbishment of the Aplington campus and expansion of the high school facilities.
“The package that’s being put together to put out to a bond vote is really a refurbishing of the Aplington building and then an expanded career and tech ed space onto the high school,” Fleshner says. “Industrial tech and ag would be the two biggest impacted by that construction if it’s approved. Some people ask kind of why, you know, how do we fall to that? Some of this honestly starts to fall into dollars and cents. Really we only have a certain amount of money to work with. And how can we kind of best channel that money to try to improve facilities here at AP. So really the community really just landed on the sizable refurbishment of the Aplington building and a career and tech ed expansion at the high school.”
The Aplington school would be renovated to transition to a modern PK-6 facility. The plan includes a new entrance and administrative space to improve security and supervision, updates to mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, energy-efficient lighting, new finishes, and reconfigured classrooms to meet elementary students’ needs. The media center would be relocated and built to accommodate modern technology, and an additional bus lane would be installed for safer drop-off and pick-up.
An expansion of Career and Technical Education spaces at the high school would provide students with practical training for emerging career fields and more robust programming in areas like agriculture, industrial technology, and other trades.
The high school in Parkersburg would become a 7-12 facility, with students in grades 7-8 being relocated to their own area within the campus, providing access to expanded courses and programming.
Fleshner says the school district’s website is where all information can be found, including potential tax implications.
“One of the hopes I have going into this bond vote, however our community members vote on this, that they’ve got good information to make their decision. That they at least take a little time to be educated about that. Also in there, we know that this is a big piece, is a tax rate calculator. Pretty simple. There’s a lot of numbers in the background, but really what you can do is talk about your assessed valuations of homes, assessed valuations of ag properties, and you can put that in there and it’ll calculate a number. So you’ll actually know by the month, by the year of what this bond vote could be for your taxes.”
Fleshner encourages those with questions to contact him at the high school office.
Travis Fleshner interview:
