Nodaway Valley examines construction wish list

Architect and engineering proposals were approved by the Nodaway Valley school board for secured entrances in the district’s buildings Wednesday, Dec. 11 in a meeting at the middle school in Fontanelle.

District leaders have been preparing a grant application that would cover a portion of the cost of the three projects, which are expected to come in at as much as $250,000 apiece.

Secured entrances would mean visitors would immediately be routed into the school building’s office before being able to go into the rest of the building.

A public hearing for the project was scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 18 at the middle school media center.

“I thought we were going to do bids on the whole project, but getting into conversations with them yesterday morning, there’s an Iowa Code that says you have to give people 14 days to bid instead of seven. We’re going to present you with a portion of the project for you to approve as well as the public hearing on the project. Then we will put the rest of the project out for bids in January, then you will have a meeting either in late January or early February to approve those bids for the secured entrance,” Superintendent Paul Croghan said. “Our goal is to get $50,000 per secured entrance through this safety grant. We made a decision administratively that instead of doing other things like hardened windows or technology that the biggest thing to keeping kids safe is to not let people in the building.

Croghan stated that the doors required for secured entrances projects like these will take up about half the cost of the entire project.

Several security measures are already in place within the district. Officer Jacob Fry with the Greenfield Police Department also recently started as Nodaway Valley’s school resource officer, a role the district has said is built on educating students and staff on good practices as well as building relationships between the community and law enforcement.

The district is additionally working to get a Project Serve grant that will recuperate some of the cost already spent in relation to tornado relief, like custodial work to get school started on time. Croghan said he expects the district will receive $43,000-45,000 from this funding source.

There is another grant, through FEMA, that would help the district get a community safe room that could double as a competition gym, classroom wing or any other usable space that would likely be connected to either the elementary or high school. The district is eligible for this grant because of the tornado that impacted Greenfield. This grant is still in the very early stages of development and construction would not be before spring 2026.

The board’s regular January meeting will be Jan. 15 in the high school media center.

Highlights of other action in the meeting included:

• approval of a request for two amounts of modified supplemental aid for open rollment out and LEP instruction beyond five years

• approval of a series of board policies

• approval of the disposal of library books