High School planning steps into the next phase
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When over 1400 people show up for a special referendum, it shows that the Webster City school district voters were interested in the outcome. With about 60% of the voters approving all three measures, the support is there, but it also reflects that a good number showed enough interest to vote against the measures.
High School principal, Jason Wedgbury said he was pleased and excited about the results.
"It's hard not to feel good. We almost had a super majority, so that was really encouraging," he said, "but obviously 40% didn't agree."
The vote, he said, was an affirmation of how the community feels about its kids and teachers. But he recognizes that there are a lot of things to consider that were brought up at the various community meetings.
"We need to get additional feedback," he said, "Our voice has to be from our teachers, the people who are doing the work in the classrooms."
"Ultimately it’s about the needs of the kids of our community, we are not necessarily like other communities," he continued.
Finding the funds to address the school needs is just the first step of the process and with the recent publicity, there are a lot of people watching the next steps. Fortunately, the work ahead is not intimidating the High School principal.
Wedgbury said he is not new to the task ahead, working with architects on a construction project.
"When I was in Cedar Falls, I took on a project similar, working with old construction to a new area, similar to this one," he said. "This is the third project I've done, and I'm very familiar with educational design and construction."
The next steps, according to Wedgbury, is to come back to the design team and the advisory board.
"It's too soon to say what will be constructed first," Wedgbury said when asked how the project will progress, "But the first step is the educational component. We have to work on the design as we see the needs, and the priority is the academic side of the project."
He indicated that there is a lot of information they have received from the public over the past few months.
"I was certainly encouraged by the results," he continued. "There is going to be a lot of work. We are going to consider all the feedback we have received, and we need to honor that."
"We have to be good stewards of taxpayer money," he concluded.
School board president, Dave Stokes, responded by texts.
"Now the real work begins," he said. "Time to get the most bang for the buck."
County Auditor, Kim Schaa, said the turnout for a special election was exceptional.
"I believe it went very smoothly; we only had a minor problem with a laptop, but that was it," she said.
Once the polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday, the voting remained pretty constant.
"The election officials were pretty tired last night," she said, "We had a good crew."
The crew that handled the Ed Prince building included Diane Doering and Linda Hutchinson- co-chairs, Jennifer McCollough, Laura Hoversten, Karyl Bonjour, Barb Ainger and Linda Davidson.
Results from the vote were available by 8:45 p.m. Tuesday for the Webster City precinct. The Webster County numbers were released on Wednesday morning.