(Lake Park)– The Harris-Lake Park Community School District held a groundbreaking today (Mon.) for a new elementary school adjacent to the existing middle school-high school. Superintendent Gary Richardson expressed his thanks to everyone, including the voters, who passed an $18.6 million bond issue to make it possible…
“It took a lot of time to get here and a lot of work by a lot of people and just really happy for the future of the kids at Harris-Lake Park as well as the community. Who would have known that we would have a groundbreaking and there’s no wind in northwest Iowa?”
In addition to a new elementary school itself, Richardson says the project includes several other components as well…
“There will be a regular competition gym with smaller seating. There will be playgrounds for preschool students as well as for students in grades three through seven. We’ll have the ability to renovate some of our classrooms in our current middle school-high school to accommodate some special courses that we hope to have, as well as upgrading and updating our middle school-high school auditorium. So we’re taking a piece out of a lot of things as well as improving some of the athletic facilities as well and we’re still putting specifics to that as we get into the detail of the budget.”
Richardson adds the fact the bond issue passed with the support of more than 70 percent of those who voted came as no surprise to him…
“Not here. It’s been here for going on 25 years of my life, and just the amount of people that came to our first meeting, were well over 60 and the amount of people that stayed on to the very end is testament to the communities of Harris and Lake Park and their commitment to the kids.”
Les Douma was superintendent at the time the bond issue was initially proposed a couple of years ago. He was also on hand for today’s (Mon.) groundbreaking…
“We looked at both the elementary, improving it, we looked at do we make a K-12 campus, and, well, after some public opinion and a lot of things, here we have a K-12 campus and I am so excited about this. I can’t imagine just looking at some of the drawings and what it might be and visioning what it’s going to look like. I’m just excited for the community, extremely. And I’m so thankful for the leadership that just took the bull by the horns and really got it done.”
Lake Park Mayor Matt Carstensen also spoke at the event, saying having a strong school system is vital to having a strong community.
