FAIRMONT – The Fairmont School Board met with ICS Consulting to discuss facilities planning during a work session on Tuesday.

The discussion is part of an ongoing process ICS has had with Fairmont since May when they initially met to develop an overall process outline and timeline. Since then, they have been working on research and development, including physical facilities assessments and educational program reviews.

A recent step taken was a survey for all staff, where they were asked about needs for the school. ICS reported that the survey had a solid amount of participants and good feedback was received. There were 123 participants, of which 57 percent were elementary and 43 percent were junior high and high school.

The current facility configuration received good reviews from the survey, with 84 percent saying the current configuration supports their teaching and learning programs.

To get feedback from the school board for future facilities improvement focus, a priority drivers exercise was done at the meeting. The exercise asked board members to rank seven needs, from highest to lowest priority. These were Infrastructure, Educational, Capacity, Safety, Community, Collaboration and Activities.

Board Member Mike Edman said he would put Community needs at the lowest priority, stressing the importance of putting the school’s needs first.

“We could allow the community to use our facility and be a partner,” Edman said. “It’s not about what they need. It’s what we need that they can use also.”

The priority of safety was a topic of discussion amongst board members. Nicole Green said she had Infrastructure, Education and Security as her top three priorities and asked if others agreed on those top three. Edman said he did not agree with security being in that top three.

“With the context in which we’re talking, we’re already safe,” he said. “To say I don’t care about safety is not true, but that is not a high [priority]. I’ve never had one person say ‘It feels really unsafe.'”

Green said she has heard concerns about safety while talking to people about Fairmont schools. Board Member Julie Laue said they talk about how easily people can come and go.

“Once somebody opens the door,” Laue said. “That can be [any place], even the gym doors. Somebody can stick a gym bag in there, and anybody else has access. I watch them across from the hospital all the time.”

Superintendent Andy Traetow said there are sensors so the school gets notified if an access point is left open.

ICS Development Executive Pat Overom thanked the board members for their discussion on the priorities, saying it is helpful to hear their feedback and differences.

The next step for ICS is to define the building space needed for programming and curriculum. Currently, ICS plans to present its initial solution options by Jan. 2025 and final facility solutions by April 2025.

Because it was a work session, no official actions or decisions were made.