SILVER LAKE — The history of Silver Lake, as a town, is the history of Silver Lake, as a school system, superintendent Brad Womack points out.
The community was among the first in Shawnee County to formally organize, in the days before the mid-20th century unification of the thousands of Kansas school districts.
As years went on, a community grew around the schools in the center of town. Physical buildings themselves came and went. People and businesses moved in and out of the rural town. Even the body of water that formed the district’s namesake all but dried up.
“But over the 100 and some years, it’s been the school that has remained constant,” Womack said.
It’s a history that Silver Lake USD 372 and its school board hope to maintain and preserve by asking community voters to pass a $16.3 million bond issue to modernize the district’s two schools — an elementary and combined middle and high school — up to 21st century standards.
“By and large, most people would tell you that as the school goes, so does the community,” Womack said. “As a school district, if we’re trying to stay on the cutting edge and being a hub for people — whether it’s through a great education or Friday night entertainment through athletics or a music program. We want good quality staff to work here, and that brings in families.”
Silver Lake USD 372 bond issue would expand and renovate library and kitchen
About $4.2 million of the bond issue would go toward renovating many of the shared spaces at Silver Lake Elementary School, specifically the library and kitchen.
The kitchen, Womack showed The Capital-Journal, is extremely cramped and outdated, with kitchen workers having to shuffle in and out of the space to even open oven doors.
Storage for the kitchen has spilled out into adjacent hallways and spaces in the school. To keep food fresh, the school still uses a wood-paneled freezer that dates back to the 1960s, Womack estimates.
Renovation and expansion work, as part of the bond issue, would slide the kitchen area over to an adjoining space, also next to the school gym and cafeteria.
The windowless library would also see extensive renovations, Womack said, in order to create a more welcoming atmosphere.
“The elementary principal and staff have been working hard on increasing kids’ love of reading, but why would you want to go to the library as a kid?” the superintendent said. “It’s not an inviting space.”
On the southwest side of the building, the former district administration corner of the building would be turned into new centralized spaces for the school’s support staff, including the school counselor and social worker.
District administration offices last spring moved into the district building at 400 E. Potawatomie St., which had been being used as preschool classrooms.
The district’s preschool program has since been moved over to the elementary building, and the bond issue would further expand capacity for early learners by adding one or two classrooms.
“We want to create more opportunity for preschool kids to participate, and not have to turn kids away,” Womack said. “We don’t want families to have to go to Topeka or elsewhere for an additional year of preschool.”
Silver Lake High School would get expanded weight room, FACS space
At the junior and senior high school, much of the $6 million in proposed bond funding would be to add space for specific programs.
The bond issue would add square footage to the wood shop area to accommodate the school’s growing robotics program, Womack said, as well as other science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.
“We have a lot of bigger machinery that our students use over there, and it’s scattered around the building,” the superintendent said. “It wouldn’t quite become a career and tech ed center — it’s not that big — but it would be an effort to expand our computer science, robotics and STEM programs for our students.”
One key part would be to reintroduce a program that students have been asking for for years, he said.
“We haven’t had a family and consumer science program for more than a decade, so we’re going to renovate that space and try to resurrect that program,” the superintendent said.
On the west end of the building, the district would hope to expand or potentially relocate the weight room, which is much too cramped to accommodate the high demand for student use.
“We have to limit the number of kids who can take some of our health and wellness, strength and conditioning type of classes, just because we don’t have the space,” Womack said.
Third part of Silver Lake bond would relocate baseball and softball field
Outside the school, the district would plan to spend about $5 million moving the current baseball and softball field to behind the elementary school, as part of a deal the district made with the city of Silver Lake to swap some tracts of land.
That move would open up more space for expansion work at the high school, as well as create new parking for students during the school day and community members during school events.
“One of the big things about our community is that whenever our school has a big event, whether that’s a big football game or wrestling tournament, parking becomes atrocious around here,” Womack said. “We’re trying to more of that parking onto our campus and off of our neighbors’ streets.”
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In addition to some of those main focal points, the bond issue would make extensive upgrades to school infrastructure, such as bathroom accessibility, fire alarms, communication systems, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.
“It’s things we need to run the building, but they’re not things that make for good pictures,” Womack said. “It’s the kind of stuff no one will ever see behind the wall or up on the roof, but it’s still necessary. You know when the air conditioner doesn’t work, you just don’t know when it gets replaced.”
Silver Lake bond issue comes amid property tax pinch
Silver Lake USD 372’s bond issue, which will be on the November ballot, is not necessarily an easy sell, Womack acknowledged. Several other rural districts in Kansas had failed bond elections last month during the Kansas primary election cycle as more voters feel the pinch of inflation and skyrocketing property values.
Per the district’s calculations, a successful bond would mean the following:
• $64.69 in new taxes for the owner of a $150,000 home.
• $140.63 in new taxes for the owner of a $150,000 commercial property.
• $87.48 in new taxes for the owner of 160 acres of irrigated land.
• $17.84 in new taxes for the owner of 160 acres of grassland.
Womack said it helps that the district is now in the last few years of paying off bonds from its 2007 election, and a successful new bond issue would mostly replace taxes from the old one.
Still, he said the school board, as well as a 25-member bond issue committee, was cognizant of many community members’ economic situations, and they focused strictly on items they felt were absolutely necessary.
“Had the economy not gotten more expensive all at the same time, I think this would be an easy sell,” Womack said. “Right now, I can’t guarantee it will be that. But we will be informative to our patrons, and we’ll answer as many questions as we can.”
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What he emphasizes is that the bond issue, unlike many others around the state, is not necessarily about growth. Silver Lake USD 372 has seen relatively stable enrollment for much of the past decade.
Silver Lake USD 372’s proposed bond, then, is about building conditions, and ensuring the spaces for the existing levels of students are adequate.
Based on feedback so far during the bond development process, Womack is confident the district can show the community that an investment in the schools is an investment in itself.
“This is something our community is saying that they feel we need,” he said.
Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com or by phone at 785-289-5325. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.
