Advertisement For that reason, Holmen School Board members Monday were given an early heads-up on a forthcoming project that could involve replacing it.
John Daily, the district’s custodial/maintenance supervisor gave the board a rundown on the project, which he said stemmed from a conversation with an former school board member a year ago.
Daily said he and a committee of community members will look at improving the track area by possibly reshaping the football field, adding irrigation, changing the track, improving the softball field and adding landscaping or bleachers.
“We get a lot of public use on those grounds and the track at the middle school,” Daily said. Among the litany of school and other groups who use the facility, Daily mentioned the Holmen Lions, who host their Kornfest car show at the track.
He also presented a slideshow that highlighted some problem areas at the facility including a photo of one the gaping cracks on the track surface.
“For those of you who have been on the board, we’ve had this crack filled and resurfaced many times,” Daily said. “It’s falling apart. It really needs to be replaced.”
Because middle school track competitions are held at the high school, Daily suggested the existing track be replaced with a smaller and less expensive, one-, two- or three-lane track.
“Maybe we could get by with less,” he said. “It would be much, much easier to maintain.”
Board member Tim Medinger said his family uses the track, if only because the high school track is locked up.
“This is an accident waiting to happen,” Medinger said, referring to the photo depicting the crack. “I think your picture here is better than it actually is. I was running through it and thinking someone is going to get hurt and sue the school district.”
Daily agreed, saying that from the standpoint of safety, the track is in rough shape.
“We can crack-fill and seal that, but the following spring it will be back,” Daily said.
Board member Anita Jagodzinski said that the cracks have been bad for at least the past 15 years.
“It looks like Westby’s track,” she said. “I want it to look better than Westby’s track.”
The playing field, Daily said, is just as bad. He said that nothing has been done in terms of improvement to the field since the 1960s. It’s shallow in the middle. When students begin football practice in August, the ground is dry and “hard as a rock.”
Daily said the goal of the project is community-wide involvement, due to the variety of groups that use it. He singled out the Holmen Lions and hinted that community fundraising would play a significant role in the project. With very limited district dollars available, community fundraising is most likely the only way the project would get funding.
“We’re hoping because we do get a lot of community use, that we’ll get some support there,” Daily said.
Board member Elizabeth Kamprud noted the importance of keeping the Lions car show in mind if the group organizing the make-over decides to use a rubberized track.
The cost to resurface the rubberized high school track is $30,000 to $35,000 every seven years. If that’s the route taken with a new middle school track, driving cars over it could have a negative effect.
“That’s why we want to involve them in this discussion,” Daily said of the Lions Club. “What do they need to be able to continue to host their event here? Depending on what we do, maybe they’re going to have to find an alternative. But we want them involved in this whole process.”
The project will be executed in phases. Daily said the plan so far is to be to begin some initial work as early as summer.
Other business
In other action, the board:
Seventy-two students have open-enrolled into the district compared with 107 that have enrolled out. That compares to 77 and 127 last year, respectively, and 67 and 108 the year before.
Administrators often point out that many open enrolled students have never enrolled in the districts they’re enrolling out of. When asked by Board President Cheryl Hancock if she was correct that without the addition of the 4K program in 2008-09 the district would actually have a declining enrollment, Carlson gave a lengthy pause before agreeing.
“It is about saving dollars for the classroom,” he said.
