Kalkaska breaks ground on elementary school expansion

Grace George, The Record-Eagle, Traverse City, Mich.
·5 min read

Jun. 9—KALKASKA — On the morning of the last day of the 2021-22 school year, Birch Street Elementary School students flanked Kalkaska's board of education trustees and administrators as they dug silver shovels into the ground outside of the Birch Street Elementary building.

The moment signified the groundbreaking of a construction project that will expand the Birch Street Elementary School building and the beginning of a two-part plan that will increase the 1,361-student district's early childcare offerings.

Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony outside of Birch Street Elementary School is part of a $16.85 million bond that passed in May 2021. The money will go towards expanding Birch Street Elementary School, turning Cherry Street Intermediate school into an early childhood center and adding minor updates on other buildings in the school district.

Right now, Birch Street Elementary houses K-3 classes and Cherry Street Intermediate houses fourth and fifth grade classes. The expansion will add eight new classrooms and a full service gymnasium to Birch Street Elementary, turning it into a traditional K-5 elementary school building.

The expansion of Birch Street Elementary is projected to be ready by August 2023, said Superintendent Rick Heitmeyer.

Construction on the Cherry Street Intermediate building will begin in May 2023, Heitmeyer said. The building will house the district's Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) classrooms, Head Start programs and other early childhood programs beginning in the 2024-25 school year.

GSRP and Head Start are free preschool offerings to low-income families.

Heitmeyer said the school district's administrators are looking for other early childhood programs to house in the new Cherry Street Intermediate building as well.

"We want to make sure that we're doing all we can for the kids, get them ready for school and ready for success," Heitmeyer said.

In May 2021, the millage for the bond that will cover these construction projects passed on its first try by a vote of 1,172 to 675, as previously reported.

Just before the May 2021 vote, the school district made its final payment on a 30-year bond, which would have dropped the mill rate from 3.72 to 2.72. Since the new bond proposal passed, the rate stayed the same at 3.72, but it will drop to 3.1 in six years.

Kalkaska High School Dropout Prevention Specialist Katie Little was on the bond steering committee and helped get clear information about the bond proposal out to the community before the May vote.

The heavy lifting for disseminating information on the bond proposal began in January of 2021, but it was a project that the school district had planned on for a few years prior to that, Little said. In 2018, KPS officials crafted a 5-year strategic plan, which included going to the public with a bond proposal, a main tenet of which would include the creation of an early childhood center that would house GSRP and Head Start classrooms, as previously reported.

Language about the lack of childcare was part of the campaign to get the millage passed, Little said.

As previously reported, in 2021, the number of licensed childcare providers in Michigan plummeted by 735. There are just 8,000 providers to take care of nearly 560,000 children under the age of 5 in the state, and many struggle to pay well and maintain affordable prices without running in the red.

Michigan legislators have directed $1.4 billion of federal relief money towards stabilizing the child care industry. It's a short-term solution, and without a long-term policy fix, experts say the industry will continue to teeter into impossibly thin margins.

Regan Foerster, vice president of Kalkaska's board of education, said the construction projects will open up a lot of opportunities for residents in Kalkaska.

With more space, classes at Birch Street Elementary will be able to do more, and dedicating all of Cherry Street Intermediate to early childcare will give parents more options for childcare, lay a foundation that sets kids up for success and make the transition to elementary school smoother, Foerster said.

"I know that Kalkaska saw that this was an investment in moving forward and in the future of people here," Foerster said. "The sooner we can get these kids in classrooms, in front of the professional teachers ... is only going to make it easier for them to succeed when they get further on in school."

Many recent school construction projects have been complicated by the effects of the pandemic. Labor shortages, inflated costs and supply chain issues have all caused many construction projects to return over budget, forcing school administrators to tweak plans and cut any unneeded costs.

While Kalkaska has seen some significant increases in costs, the estimates for their bond project were made during the pandemic and were created based on a knowledge of the ongoing labor and supply shortage. Heitmeyer said they've seen fewer issues than other school districts that have had to execute construction with pre-COVID cost estimates.

KPS officials have also worked with hired architects and contractors, Integrated Designs, Inc. (IDI) and Wolgast Corporation, to avoid future delays from supply chain shortages, Heitmeyer said.

IDI and Wolgast architects and construction managers, which have worked on many other similar projects recently, have been able to plan ahead when necessary and coordinate purchases for supplies that could be subject to delays due to supply chain issues.