POSTED: Friday, Jan. 22, 2010

Meridian High senior pushes school bond as senior project

LAUREL - Meridian High School senior Joel Wiebe's culminating project may impact students for decades to come, but only if school district voters agree with him.

Wiebe has spearheaded the campaign to pass a $17 million bond issue to rebuild much of Meridian High School and expand and upgrade Irene Reither Primary School.

And if the measure passes, Wiebe and other students who have helped him will have left a giant senior gift: a new school.

"You know it could have been better," Wiebe, 18, said about attending school in an aging building. "We're stuck with what we have, but we want other students to have better."

One of the reasons Wiebe got behind the bond measure was because of favorable conditions, despite the recession. If passed, the bond will raise property taxes for those in the Meridian School District by only 2 cents for every $1,000 of a home's assessed value. This means a person who owns a home assessed at $300,000 will pay only $6 more in school property taxes each year. The small increase is because an existing bond was paid off at the end of last year.

Plus because of the recession, construction costs and bond rates are lower than in years past, and the district is eligible for up to $11.1 million in state funding for school construction, if the measure passes.

Since the end of November, Wiebe has been canvassing the school, getting 18-year-old students registered to vote and recruiting others to help him publicize the election. Wiebe enlisted senior Dakota Huntley to create a video highlighting "all the blemishes" around Meridian High, and asked senior Holli King to create a Facebook page about the bond measure.

And several students assisted with phone banking, calling voters in the district and giving them a student perspective of how much the bond measure is needed.

If approved, the bond would allow the district to build a new academic building at Meridian High School to replace Old Main. The 1920s-era building has structural issues, with posts propping up the ceiling in some classrooms, and severe energy-efficiency problems due to aging boilers and calcified pipes.

The heating issues can be severe enough to disrupt learning, according to students. Earlier in January, the temperature in one classroom reached about 90 degrees. During a cold snap last winter, students were moved to the auditorium for the day after the temperature in their classroom dropped to about 40 degrees.

"It's just not a comfortable learning environment," Wiebe said.

At Irene Reither Primary School, the bond would allow for an 8,000-square-foot addition, which would replace the portable buildings some classes are now taught in.

The Meridian School District asked voters to approve a similar bond measure to rebuild Meridian High School in March 2008. The $23 million bond request received about 52 percent of the vote, but school bonds must have a supermajority, or 60 percent of voters, approving the measure to pass.

From Wiebe's perspective, the future of Old Main is in voters' hands.

"If the bond doesn't pass, it's only a matter of time until yellow tape goes up around it," Wiebe said.

GET MORE INFO

For more information about the Meridian School District bond issue, go to voteyesmeridian.org or go to facebook.com and search for "Vote Meridian." The video can be found on the Facebook page.