Summertime: Busy Time for Projects!

We have been very busy here this summer! If you have had an opportunity to drive by, you have probably noticed quite a bit of action in front of the school! This is the bike trail extension and will ultimately hook up to the existing trail out by the Coop. Contractors are working both ends of the project and you can also see progress up by Colwell Ford. The trail will move through town parallel to highway 63 before coming up First Street by the middle school and turning South on Washington. Ultimately it will end at the corner of Wood Street. We are excited about this project and the opportunity to showcase our school to visitors along the trail. A big thanks to the City of Hudson for taking this on, there is no doubt it will be a huge draw for our town! This project is slated for completion on August 26th. Although this is two days after school starts, we are confident the school portion of the project will be completed well in advance of this deadline.

Another project we have scheduled for the summer is replacing carpet in the elementary school. Unfortunately we didn't get off to a very good start! After beginning the removal of old carpet, nine inch floor tile was discovered. This size of floor tile is a telltale sign that asbestos is present. Now asbestos is present is a lot of schools, and as long as it isn't disturbed it can stay in place indefinitely. However, since we want to put new carpet down, it is necessary to remove the old floor tile. After the testing came back positive we took steps to begin the removal process, which is going on right now and will be finished up by the end of the week. An environmental air monitoring firm has been onsite all week and will remain for the duration of the project. This firm works independent of the contractors and it is their job to take air samples before, during and after the removal for safety purposes. In addition to this, we were required to notify the Iowa DNR and Iowa OSHA ten days prior to starting the project. I am very happy to report that in spite of these tight timelines, we should be back on track with the installation of new carpet early next week!

As I mentioned above, asbestos is not uncommon in many Iowa schools, and as such all Iowa schools are required to have their buildings inspected every three years and have the asbestos documented along with a mitigation plan. In Hudson we just completed our re-inspection in May. You can read about it on page nine of the annual Topics newsletter.

We are also working to remodel the bathrooms in the elementary school, notably the restrooms in the first through fourth grade wing and the kindergarten wing. Unfortunately we are not able to get to the upstairs restrooms this summer, but hope to have them taken care of next summer. As you can probably imagine, the work in our elementary is quite extensive this summer! 

The competition gym floor is also being refinished as we speak. The contractors on that project arrived this week and at this point have sanded down the floor to bare wood an put on the first coat of stain inside the three point arch. The new paint scheme is going to look amazing and provide a much needed update. I am sure you will enjoy it!

In the high school we have finished painting the commons and have new furniture on the way. The new paint will really show off our school pride and the furniture will certainly modernize the room, making it more comfortable for our students and everyone who uses that space. We are also working on a new 'Inquiry' space in the high school that is modeled after a maker-space room at the AEA. This room will feature cutting edge technology and enable all our students to engage in real world problem solving and creative thinking. 

Finally, since we were replacing the carpet in the elementary school we decided to replace the carpet in the high school auditorium and give that space a fresh coat of paint. That work is scheduled to begin right after the Independence Day holiday.

I hope you keep enjoying your summer! We are working hard to make sure everything looks great when our students return in August!

Buy and Shop Locally

Recently I became president of the Chamber of Commerce here in Hudson. While it may seem a little strange for the school superintendent to also serve as the Chamber president, I don't see it that way at all. The fact is, it is a rare occasion we may differ in our approach to a specific issue. The vast majority of the time I would argue that we are aligned in our position and share a key commonality: to make Hudson the very best that we can for all our citizens. We want to ensure our community thrives in all areas of business and education. Indeed our school does not operate in a vacuum, nor does the business community. It is through mutual cooperation and collaboration that we can improve the quality of life for all our constituents in Hudson. We must, and we do, rely on one another!

For example the school is uniquely positioned to provide a direct pipeline of future employees to our businesses. I have spent time listening to local business owners as they discuss with me what qualities they are looking for in their next hire, and by taking that information back to the district we are exploring ways in which to strengthen this pipeline. In fact, I have written about some of those efforts right here in this column. We know that post-secondary education is important, but that takes a variety of forms and doesn't necessarily mean a four year college degree. Yet that isn't the purpose of my post today. Today I want to share with you how the stewardship of our local resources are reinvested in our business community.

Most people realize and understand that the school district is one of the largest employers in town with a substantial budget. Because of this, we have quite a bit of purchasing power and try to do as much business in town as we possibly can. In fact, we actually have a policy that gives local preference. Board Policy Code No. 705.1 states the following:

As permitted by law, purchasing preference will be given to Iowa goods and services from locally-owned businesses located within the school district or Iowa based companies if the cost and other considerations are relatively equal and meet the required specifications.  

We try hard to do as much business as we possibly can locally. I hope that most would agree we do a decent job, although I am certain there are areas where we can improve. While doing business [locally] is codified for the school district in Policy, that is not the only reason we do so. We do so because of an understanding of what those businesses mean to our community. Without local business it makes it more difficult to have that high quality of life that we want for all our citizens. If our community members constantly have to go to the next town over, they may, at some point decide that it is much more convenient to simply live there. We must not allow that to happen! But as large as our purchasing power is as a school district, we can't go it alone.

Today I want to encourage you to visit our local businesses and shop locally as much as you possibly can. It is true, there are items and services offered in the larger Cedar Valley that may not be available in our home community. At the same time, there are many local businesses that would benefit from your patronage and I would encourage you to stay local.

Our community, both business and school is strong! Geographically we couldn't have it much better. I think this might be part of the reason that we are somewhat insulated from what has happened in many rural communities in Iowa. In some of those small Iowa towns schools are shuttering. Citizens of these communities are rightfully sad and believe that when the school closes it is the end of the town. That is usually not the case. That small town had likely been [barely] hanging on for some time. It probably began when local businesses began to leave.

Let's keep our business and school community strong! Be sure to shop locally!