‘A celebration of what’s to come’
East Marshall leaders, students break ground on high school addition Saturday morning
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LE GRAND -- As the Le Grand community came out to celebrate the new and improved Pioneer Days on Saturday morning, leaders from the East Marshall Community School District, along with students, residents and representatives from Estes Construction, held a brief groundbreaking ceremony for the high school addition after the successful passage of a $19.8 million bond issue last November.
"It really is a celebration of what's to come for us here at East Marshall," Superintendent Kevin Seney said. "Passing the bond in 2025 really showed our community support for our school district, for the future of our school district, for the belief in our staff and our students to carry out the education path at East Marshall on par with everybody else around us."
In Le Grand, the bond will finance a new high school building for students in grades 9-12 with "modernized classrooms" and "innovative spaces" providing spaces for students to collaborate, for teachers to work and spread out and the modern amenities East Marshall doesn't currently have.
"We're gonna have safer facilities, better classrooms, more innovative spaces for our kids, but also, the building itself really symbolizes a point of pride for our communities as well. So when folks roll up from Grundy Center or Hudson or Gladbrook-Reinbeck, they can see the kind of commitment that East Marshall made to its staff and to its students," Seney said.
He went on to thank school board members for persevering after a previous bond referendum failed in 2024, his fellow district administrators for managing the transition from three to two buildings at the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year, members of the bond committee who helped to push for a 'Yes' vote and distributed signs, and everyone who voted in favor of the bond.
Although he joked that ground has already been broken on the project -- thus rendering the ceremony only "semi-official" -- Seney then welcomed students, board members and administrators to grab a shovel and move some dirt. A similar event is planned for the elementary school project in Laurel on Wednesday at 10:10 a.m.
Students in grades 7-12 will attend classes at the completed Le Grand campus, while grades K-6 will be educated in Laurel.
Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.