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The Creston Community School District Board of Directors approved both the design contract for a safe room at the Creston Early Childhood Center and the application for a grant for the project through the Federal Emergency Management Agency at their December meeting.
Superintendent Deron Stender said the district has applied for a FEMA grant for this purpose before, but state funding was unavailable.
“It’s a surprise for many people, it was a surprise for us, because in years past there haven’t been funds available for this,” he said.
Stender said the grant’s availability is due to the derecho storm which swept through Iowa in August. In response to the state’s needs, federal funds were sent to Iowa through FEMA.
When the board became aware of these funds, around the beginning of the school year, Stender said they began to work out the details of the application. This month, the board approved proceeding with the application and the financial obligation of the district to submit an architectural design plan, which FEMA requires, along with it.
Stender said the board met with the architect awarded the design project, DLR Group, and approved the design cost of $20,000. CCSD is currently working with DLR Group on the school’s security project, as well.
“They know the district from that project and that process,” he said.
Stender said if the FEMA grant is awarded, it will cover 85% of the total cost to the school. However, without the grant approved, the district will not be able to proceed with the project. The cost is currently estimated at 2 to 2.5 million dollars. Stender said if more work is required, such as the addition of a hallway to grant access to the proposed space at the north end of the ECC building, the current estimate may increase. Stender said the grant would cut the cost of the project to approximately $200,000 to $300,000 for the district.
A “win-win”
Stender called the idea to construct another safe room in the district a “win-win.” In the case of extreme weather without a safe room, staff would have to transport young students to another place.
“We’d have to go to a local shelter or someplace if an event were to happen, as opposed to our other two buildings that have a safe room that can quickly provide safety for our students and staff members and community members. It gives us one more secure and safe place,” he said.
Stender said the safe room would also allow the ECC to have more space for educational programs throughout the year.
“We would potentially start a preschool program working with Head Start and our local preschool programs to provide educational opportunities on-site in the district, which we do not do right now,” he said.
Similarly, Stender said the district’s other safe rooms are regularly utilized. The middle school safe room is a gymnasium purposed as an additional space for school activities. The high school safe room — which includes two classrooms and larger hallways — utilizes the space for educational programing.
Design
Stender said the safe room would follow FEMA’s guidelines. According to fema.gov, a safe room meeting their criteria is a hardened structure which provides “near-absolute protection in extreme weather events, including tornadoes and hurricanes.” Their website states that near-absolute protection, based on FEMA’s current knowledge of extreme weather events, ensures that the occupants of a safe room built in accordance with their guidelines “will have a very high probability of being protected from injury or death.”
The board met to collaborate with representatives from the ECC, Creston Head Start, the Union County Development Association, and Southwestern Community College in regards to the project’s design. Stender said that part of the decision-making process was determining whether they wanted it to include a gymnasium or classrooms.
“So, we went through an analysis of what our needs are for our early childhood learning programs, and the design we are going to be submitting will include about four classrooms, and a large muscle space in that safe room, as well. But it would be able to house anybody who’s in our facility who would (need) a safe place to go, or members from the community, based on that design that we’re going forward with,” he said.
Stender said they ultimately decided that the ECC would benefit more from classroom space, as opposed to just a gymnasium.
“We didn’t feel that we needed another gymnasium verses classrooms to be able to get our early childhood kids — our four-year-olds — into a setting that would provide them with educational opportunities and help us get a jumpstart on providing early childhood education,” he said.
Moving forward
The application and design will be submitted in January. Stender said the board hopes to know if the grant is approved by spring. The board is aware that during the construction process, if the grant is awarded, some temporary changes at the ECC may come into effect. Stender said construction would not begin until next fall, with the approximate completion sometime in spring of 2022.
Stender said DLR Group would oversee the construction management process in accordance with FEMA regulations, but that a separate entity would be contracted for the construction of the project, if approved.
“It’s an exciting opportunity for our district to be able to have another safe space,” Stender said.