T-R PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER Members of the Clutier community gathered at the fire station Tuesday evening to listen to North Tama Superintendent David Hill, second from right, discuss the recent failed bond referendum. Also pictured is school board member Doug Dvorak, second from left, and secondary principal Taylor Howard, third from right.

CLUTIER — If there was one thing North Tama Superintendent David Hill wanted to make clear Tuesday night during his visit to the Clutier Fire Station to discuss the recent failed bond referendum, it was how much he disliked “throwing money down a rat hole.”

Hill repeated that phrase again and again throughout the nearly two hour meeting as he described the myriad of issues his district’s 1917 three-story building and the nearly 60-year-old elementary wing – both located in Traer – have presented in the eight years he’s helmed the district.

“It’s kind of like throwing money down a rat hole.”

The meeting was billed as a community listening session and was announced following the failure — by just six votes — of the district’s $14.25 million bond referendum on March 7.

Hill, along with North Tama Secondary Principal Taylor Howard and school board members Doug Dvorak and David Calderwood, welcomed eight members of the Clutier community to the fire station Tuesday evening. The quartet began the event by serving pulled pork sandwiches, chips, and brownies in an effort to keep the atmosphere friendly and less on the stale, formal side.

As the small group gathered around a long table to tuck into the fare – Calderwood, a farmer, at one point joking they all needed to “eat more pork” – Hill took his place at the head of the table and opened by asking the attendees to briefly introduce themselves.

Everyone was either related or knew each other, which makes perfect sense for the tiny Czech hamlet which consolidated with Traer in 1961 – its former school on the east side of town now empty, boarded up in places, broken in so many others.

“I know that everybody here has different, varying connections to the school,” Hill said. “Regardless of whether you feel connected to the school, all residents have a vested interest. … North Tama is preparing the workforce of tomorrow and preparing the citizens of tomorrow.”

Hill then laid out his “vision” for the district moving forward.

“I believe that North Tama has a bright future. The type of education we can provide in our smaller, rural schools is valuable. It’s worth preserving,” he said.

Hill told the group he sees it that way for four key reasons – enrollment, though small, has remained level – neither up nor down – over the last decade; the district has a net gain in terms of open enrollment, attracting more students (49) than it loses; the district’s general fund finances are “in good shape”; and finally, overall the PK-12 district “serves the community well” without requiring bus routes to far-flung places geographically.

He also listed the district’s challenges which include employment difficulties, the increasing amount of mandates from both the state and federal levels, and the district’s aging facilities.

Hill then dug into the meat of the problem as he sees it when it comes to the bond failing – information dissemination. Specifically, Hill asked those sitting before him, what the district could have done to get the word out about the vote to the community better.

Ahead of the March 7 vote, North Tama advertised in both the North Tama Telegraph and the Tama County Shopper, posted repeatedly on social media, sent a postcard to every voter address in the school district, set up an information table at local community and school events, made phone calls to voters and held community meetings.

“I’m surprised there weren’t more people here tonight,” one attendee said somewhat incredulously. “What else can you do [to attract people]?”

Most in the small group, however, seemed to want to discuss the bond itself rather than the district’s marketing strategy. Discussion quickly turned to just that when a man to Hill’s left stated his biggest concern was what exactly the $14.25 million would be used for – as he spoke, others around him began to nod.

Mostly, Hill repeated several times during the course of the next hour, the bond would stop the district from having to Band-Aid everything.

The school’s 106-year-old boiler system presents the biggest challenge. To illustrate his point, Hill showed a video he had taken with his iPhone of the boiler.

The footage is best described as jaw-dropping to those unfamiliar with the workings of a 1917 building. Dark, dingy, aging spaces including steam tunnels so narrow technicians have to crawl on their bellies to access the underside of the radiators throughout the building.

“That’s one of the reasons [the district’s] bills for repairs are so high,” Hill said. “They need to find a [mechanic] who will crawl on their stomach to get in there.”

Hill’s video also showed bathrooms that require using steps to gain access, a high school classroom with an elevator – the district’s only elevator – located at the back of the room, education spaces requiring practically acrobatic work to gain entry, and a poorly ventilated kitchen nestled in the center of the building that gets so hot a cook seems to quit every year.

“That gives you some idea what we’re dealing with,” Hill said.

Prior to the video, Hill made a statement that appeared to give some in the room pause.

“We have [teachers] that are forced to run a window air conditioner in the winter,” Hill said. “The [boiler] system just can’t be regulated.”

All of these issues would have cost the district nearly $13 million to fix, according to the architectural study the district underwent more than two years ago.

“It’s very, very expensive to replace the HVAC in an old building,” Hill said.

That led the school board to ask why not, instead, “spend that money to create functionality in the district” – from that questioning phase one was born.

To put it simply, Hill said, phase one – the bond referendum – would have accomplished three main things: HVAC work (but not in the 1917 building as that would be subsequently torn down in phase two), building a new two-story high school on the east side of the campus to replace the 1917 building, and security upgrades to the district’s 24 different entrances.

Construction to make the facilities ADA-compliant – something which is required by law during any new construction – would also occur, which is why a new weight room and locker room upgrades were included in phase one.

“It is confusing and I wish we could do it more simply,” Hill conceded.

He told the group there was “no way” the district could afford to do everything at once due to its limited bonding capacity. After the video ended and the lights went back on, table discussion briefly turned to North Tama’s graduating class sizes, which now hover around the mid-30s.

“I didn’t realize we were that small,” one man in the group said.

“[Driving] around the countryside – places where there were houses, it’s farm ground now,” another responded.

Small or otherwise, Hill said something has to be done – and he prefers that something not involve dropping any more money down holes, rat or otherwise.

The soonest North Tama could bring the bond issue to another vote would be this September. Discussion surrounding the district’s next steps was set to take place during the April 12 school board meeting in Traer.