10-year plan may include demo old section of CHS

In lieu of the Spring 2020 elections, the Cameron School District Board of Education outlined their proposed plan during a special meeting Friday before officially passing it Monday.

Renovations requiring demolition of the north wing of the Cameron High School campus was one of the details of the 10-year plan which had not come to light since conversations with public meetings last fall, but Supt. Matt Robinson presented an admittedly loose outline which the board could tailor to better meet the district’s needs. 

“We can create, add and throw to if there are other parts to this,” Robinson said. “What I wanted to put down is where we were at on some of these things - 2021 (construction) is a little hard to do. If it’s elected in April of 2020, then we’re probably not getting into it until 2021.”

Anticipating a three-fold increase to the size of the footprint of a proposed agriculture education building as well as new science and family and consumer arts classrooms, Robinson said he and an architect contracted to create the 10-year plan discussed completely tearing down the north wing of Cameron High School, replacing it with the new ag. building, and relocating the weight room and wrestling room to add classroom space. The weight room would move to the old ag. building while the wrestling room would relocate to the metal works shop. 

“We’re going to increase the size of our weight room and the wrestling room would be where the metal shop would be. Now, I have a bigger wrestling room, a bigger weight room and gained three classrooms at the bottom,” Robinson said. “… I’m pretty close to moving everybody out of the north wing and tearing down the north wing. We would have half of the high school tore down. We would have the ag. facility right here (replacing the north wing) because it would not be moving and still close to the greenhouse so it could be utilized without having to remove or rebuild it.”

Due to drainage issues in the north wing, Robinson said the district would save approximately $250,000 annually on landscaping to prevent flooding and reinvest those funds to the Family and Consumer Arts education. He added students and faculty will experience some discomfort once the district tears down the north wing because, at that time, the new ag. building will still be under construction. By reshuffling CHS, Robinson hopes it puts the district in better shape when they begin discussing their next 10-year plan in 2030.

“We’re going to have to be creative for a year, but it also puts us in a really good spot when we get back to the 10-year plan,” he said. “When we have $6 million in eight years, that is going to be easy to redo this section and have editions like redoing the library and having a new conference center. It’s very, very preliminary … We can almost accomplish whatwe want to by tearing down the whole north wing which is the worst part of the building.”

With the passage of Proposition B.E.S.T., renamed from Proposition K.I.D.S. due to potential false connotations with child prostitution, Robinson said the district intends to immediately get to work. This summer Cameron Intermediate School will receive improvements to its heating and air conditioning units. Summer 2021 projects include resurfacing the track, Parkview Elementary School classroom improvements. David Goodwin Field will receive new artificial turf in 2027 and in 2028 and 2029 the district would tear down the north section of CHS. 

“We went to the community and the community wanted a performing arts center, ag. facilities and vocationals improved … We’ve done the things the community asked us,” Robinson said.