New Gym, AIM High, Teacher Pay -- Priorities?

Just in time for the Boys State Basketball tournament, another new gym proposal blooms in Madison. Jon Hunter editorializes online (and the print MDL elaborates) about a proposal brought to the board by Madison resident Ron Barthel to expand the middle school gym. Same arguments as last year: too small for a regulation court, not enough spectator seats, no home-court advantage for the Bulldogs. What's different from last year's proposal: scale and price.

Last year's boosters asked for a whole new gym at a cost of $5.83 million (which with interest would have amounted to a $9.8 million debt burden on the district for 25 years).

Mr. Barthel's proposal: knock out the north wall, add gym space and seats. One contractor tells him we can do it for $900,000.

$900,000 -- that's a pretty remarkable drop in price, especially considering that last year's gym boosters told us "There's not a smaller, cheaper option around the corner."

But we still face questions of priorities. Do we want to commit even that much money to a gym expansion project when there are other projects awaiting our attention? If the mission of the school board is to maintain and expand educational opportunities for the kids, then we need to ask which projects will best meet that mission.

Among the justifications for the gym expansion, Mr. Barthel still didn't provide any educational purpose served by the expense. No matter how big the gym is, the same number of kids will still be on the court playing ball. Our boys have been able to get a good enough basketball education in the current facility to qualify for the state tournament again. Before committing school district dollars, I'll want to see the case made that a bigger gym improves educational opportunities.

I'll also want to see the budget and see what trade-offs would have to be made. $900,000: we could use that money to cover at least 20 years of the costs of AIM High that will no longer be covered by the state. Set the gym and AIM High side by side, and I see pretty clearly which educational project should get funding first.

Consider also the high school improvement plan. We built a new middle school in the 1990s and a new elementary this decade. Once we get the elementary school's light poles fixed, it's time to take the hammer and paintbrush to our forty-year-old high school.

I also can't help comparing the gym to the high school theater. The Bulldog band, chorus, and theater company have performed for 40 years in the same facility, the MHS auditorium. That performing arts space has never been expanded. The seats are the same ones that were there when I played Mr. Toad on that stage. In 40 years, the upgrades that facility has received have consisted of a soundshell for the musicians, a new front curtain, a new circuit board so Doc Miller's techies wouldn't get electrocuted doing scene changes, and a new light and sound board. (Doc, I might be forgetting a couple items -- feel free to add to that list!)

Of course, the same argument about success can be made about the fine arts programs. Just as Coach Ricke has led his boys to success in a substandard gym, Doc Miller has led MHS actors to state awards for over 20 years straight from a substandard performance space. (Heck, my Montrose kids were able to become state-quality actors rehearsing in 20'x30' nook in the gym that hardly deserved the name of stage.) Good coaches and good teachers can make education happen in almost any space.

So the question may not be one of need. It would certainly be nice to have a bigger gym. It would be nice to have a bigger stage and theater that could host bigger theatrical events. The question may be whose turn it is. Athletics got a new and improved facility in the 1990s; maybe fine arts should get a turn at the public trough before we go expanding the gym facilities again.

Let's not forget, though, that public funding isn't the only way to make this happen. Refer back to my Plan B for the new gym, which I offered last year after the bond issue failed. I suggested a drive to fund the gym through private donations and corporate sponsorships. Forward Madison raised $2.3 million in less than a year. $5.83 million might have been a stretch, but a solid fundraising effort could easily have raised the downpayment for the new gym project. Boosters in Fairbury, Nebraska (population 4262), set out to raise $1.5 million in private dollars for a new sports facility. A similar effort now might be able to fund Mr. Barthel's proposal 100%.

With kids able to play ball and succeed in sports right now, directing public dollars toward a gym expansion may be hard to justify in the face of other priorities, like AIM High, where educational opportunities may actually be lost. It would be great if the school district could fund everything, but at the moment, a private fundraising effort looks like the better option for expanding our athletic facilities.