Efforts to keep the Crocker R-II School District from spending thousands of dollars on a sewer line for rarely-used restrooms on the athletic field appear to have hit a snag.
Crocker school officials requested and received permission from the Crocker City Council earlier this month to install a holding tank rather than a sewer line. However, at Tuesday night’s school board meeting, Superintendent Jim Bogle told board members that he’s received a letter from the Pulaski County Health Department asking whether the school district has considered other alternatives.
“They said as a last resort they would allow us to put in holding tanks. I can’t present a plan; I think we need to contact someone who has done this before,” Bogle said.
Bogle proposed calling a public meeting on a Friday evening with local contractors to explore options.
Board member Don Mayhew, who owns an engineering firm, said he’s called city officials including Crocker City Administrator Joyce Peterson.
“The city apparently didn’t know any of this was going on and Joyce thinks there may be a jurisdictional issue,” Mayhew said. “(Health officials) said they usually only allow these as a temporary measure, and I said that is not what we are looking at; we are trying to do something permanent.”
Other construction projects also need to be considered, Bogle said, including a possible grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to build a structure that will double as a tornado shelter and school facility.
“Licking just got a tornado shelter from the same deal, and it’s a good deal for them and it could be for us,” Bogle said. “We need to have a special meeting sometime before the next board meeting so we can ask about and discuss these issues.”
Crocker schools decided to began an in-town school bus route this year due to extensive construction work near the school, and Bogle said that turned out to be a good decision.
“With all the construction we have, I’d much rather have a second-grader or a first-grader taking the bus than trying to walk down Highway 17 or U Highway,” Bogle said.
In other business:
• School officials reported about 280 elementary school students and 240 secondary students have enrolled, which is an increase of about 30 students at the elementary level and 10 in high school.
“We’re trying not to get too excited because it was that way last year too, but by the time everybody got done moving in and out, it was back down again,” said Crocker Elementary School Principal Doug Jacobson.
• Board members implemented an option given to them by the state legislature this year of allowing military dependents to graduate if they have passed a state constitution test in another state.
• Representatives of State Farm Insurance presented a $4,000 check to the district which will be used as Crocker’s contribution toward the salary of C.J. Klinefelter, the Frisco League curriculum coordinator.
• Bogle reported that Crocker cheerleaders placed fourth regionally in a recent cheerleading competition.
“Our cheerleaders have done very well; they competed against some really large districts, though they didn’t know that would be the case until they got up there,” Bogle said.
• Board members adopted a base property tax rate of $2.75 per $100 of assessed valuation, the state-mandated minimum school tax, along with a 61.09 cent tax rate for school construction bond repayment. That’s a drop of about 13 to 14 cents from last year’s rate. With an assessed valuation of $20.4 million in real estate and $5.99 million in personal property for a total of $26.39 million compared with $26.06 million last year, the new Crocker tax rate is projected to generate $856,630 in tax revenue for Crocker.
Crocker, Mo. —
