Voters head to the polls on Aug. 2 to decide on a $75 million school bond proposal. The Clarkston News is touring the school district to see where and why it is needed. In the third of a series, we check out Springfield Plains Elementary.

BY TREVOR KEISER
Clarkston News Staff Writer
Springfield Plains Elementary (SPE) would receive approximately $5.3 million in upgrades if the $75 million bond

passes.

Building & Site Improvements
Of the approximately $1.4 million for new construction, $870,000 would go to site adjustments, reconfigure parent/bus drop-off loops, additional parking, and lighting.
“We have all these school functions and people are parking on the grass or down the street,” said SPE Principal Matthew Gifford.
Meanwhile, $483,400 would go to neighborhood access walkways, LED lighting for parking lots, playground equipment, ball field, and drainage upgrades, additional hard play surfaces, and paved playground track.
According to Wes Goodman, executive director of operations for the school district, SPE was used as the “standard” when they did the last playground upgrades for the other six elementary schools, because it had the newest equipment when it was built 22 years ago.
Goodman said all the current equipment is safe because they have it checked on a regular basis, but they have pulled a few pieces out in the past few years.
“We haven’t replaced them yet because we’ve been thinking of what’s the better long term,” he said. “The problem with equipment today is it’s a lot of plastic and the problem with plastic is it become brittle after years.”
He noted they work to try and keep all the elementary playgrounds equivalent to one another.
“Designs improve and this one is by far the least fun looking,” he said. “It doesn’t have some of the cool rock walls like what they have today and that kind of thing.”

“We’re not looking for space age, but an upgrade is in order,” added Deputy Superintendent Shawn Ryan.
Playground equipment is also safer, Goodman said.
“Everything today wouldn’t have a square post (it would be round) in case a kid fell into it,” he said.
Gifford added the playground track was originally woodchips, but over time the track wore away and become more like a ditch.
“Now it pretty much just collects water in the spring and fall,” he said.
New lockers would cost about $106,000. Goodman said the bottom of the new lockers would be about a foot higher off the ground and there would be a tile base underneath so kids could put their shoes and boots there instead of inside their locker.
“It would be like a boot bench with a locker on top,” Ryan explained.
There is also $22,500 in the budget for new windows on the southeast wing of the building.
“Window replacement is going to be selective. There are some windows that are very difficult to open and there is just not a really good fix, so replacement is selective in that,” Goodman said. “This building most of the rooms have an exterior door, but the areas where we’re having window issues are where we don’t have exterior doors.”
There is another approximately $1.6 million in building improvements.

Safety & Security
The district is asking for $524,000 for a secure entry addition and canopy, as well as another $125,700 for security cameras, fire alarm, building card access, and fire alarm update.
Currently the office monitors visitors as they come to the front doors on a video screen, but once they buzz that person in, they have open access down the hallways to any classroom. Goodman said they have two options for securing the entrance at SPE.
“It’s either to put doors here in the corridor that has to be released or move the whole office forward,” he said. “Whatever we do will restrict people from getting in and going wherever.”

Education Technology
Angela Harrison, district administrator of technology, said SPE was the first they did lab reconfigurations to go to Chromebook carts to replace rows of desktop Windows computers.
“Now the majority of their Chrome bases are over four years old, so they need to be upgraded,” she said. “I think they have only one cart that is the new Chrome Books we were able to purchase for M-STEP testing.”
“A lot of the newer stuff was a fact of urgency because we had to have to comply with the state testing regulations,” Ryan added.
As in other schools, Harrison noted the Windows machines are outdated and running on XP. The older Chrome books are now almost five years old and in need of replacement as well.
“We’re still talking right now about how we would configure per grade level,” she said. “A certain number per grade level, but we’re not going one-to-one so we would provide carts per grade level or subject area or whatever was required.”
They have some carts that hold 32 and some that hold 16 chrome books.
“Hopefully on the ratio that every two classrooms would be able to share every three classrooms being able to share two carts of them,” Ryan added.
They would also replace the pull-down projector screens with new interactive TV’s, which Ryan called longer term technology.
Harrison said she had 540 projectors with warranty end at the same time.
“Of course with anything under warranty as soon as the warranty expires, everything starts going,” she said. “We’ve been replacing those, slowly 40-50 a year for the last few years.”
Harrison also said the interactive televisions would have a longer lifespan, longer warranty and wouldn’t require maintenance, like the replacement of bulbs.
SPE was built in 1994 and can hold a capacity of 600. Last year they had 489 students enrolled.
Technology is estimated at a total of approximately $857,000 for audio/visual systems, network upgrades, staff and student device upgrade and computer lab equipment upgrades.
GMB Architecture and Engineering prepared a master capital list including a long-range 10-year plan for all district needs.
For a complete list of bond items and cost, on all elementary schools visit www.clarkston.k12.mi.us. See next week’s edition for on Clarkston Junior High School, which will conclude our school tours series on the bond.