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Warsaw Community Schools is moving forward with combining Lakeview and Edgewood middle schools.
During Tuesday’s Warsaw School Board meeting, the board held its second preliminary determination hearing about the project.
Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said renovating the middle schools was a five- to seven-year plan. There are potential areas that could be accelerated to save some money. There are also some components that could take a little bit longer because school is still going on during the project.
Hoffert went over the history of Lakeview Middle School. It was built in the 1960s and was the high school initially before it became one of the middle schools. He also talked about the history of Edgewood, most recently being renovated in 2016.
There were a couple options WCS looked at when looking at Lakeview over the past couple years. Including looking at building a new middle school at another location, keeping two middle schools and renovating Lakeview and combining the two schools at either location.
The recommendation made at last month’s meeting was to combine the two middle schools at Lakeview. Tuesday, Hoffert went through the difficulties of the other options, which included having a hard time finding land for a new location for Lakeview, and the inability to grow at the Edgewood site.
“The reason why this process is so complex is it’s not dealing with one school,” Hoffert said, noting Gateway and Warsaw Area Career Center programs are also housed at Lakeview.
With combining the two middle schools at Lakeview, Edgewood would be repurposed to hold Gateway and WACC programs.
Hoffert said WCS wants to make sure they’re preparing students for their future, as well as being efficient in what they’re doing with the project.
“We want to make sure we are doing what is right for our community,” he said.
He said with project timeline of five to seven years, the maintainence projects WCS is doing are not emergencies, but potentially could be in five years.
Hoffert also discussed transportation issues and programing within the middle schools, and showed the board what Lakeview could look like - including possible additions and the areas to be renovated.
Jerry Rolfson, director of architecture at Performance Services Inc., talked about what was considered when thinking about designs for Lakeview. He talked about the issues WCS would see about trying to self-contain Gateway and WACC classes at Lakeview.
Hoffert said bonds will not be issued all at once, but will be spread out over several years.
Stephen Boyer, chief financial officer at WCS, said WCS was looking at fiscally responsible and efficient options to take care of their facilities, while also improving education efficiency.
Boyer also said the best long-term value is achieved by renovating Lakeview into a single, consolidated middle school and repurposing Edgewood to hold Gateway and WACC classes.
The current estimated cost for the project is $108 million. Because it is a multiyear project, the total including cost escalation is $119 million, which includes a $9.6 guaranteed energy savings contract the school board approved last year and is currently underway at Lakeview.
The project will be financed over time through WCS’ existing debt service fund, Boyer said. The taxpayers are not being asked to support a higher debt service levy beyond what WCS is already supporting.
The proposed maximum bond authorization amount is $143 million. The proposed financing also includes other capital improvements around the corporation, the biggest of which include HVAC renovations at Eisenhower and Harrison; restrooms at Eisenhower; potential HVAC renovations in the Warsaw Community High School gymnasium; and roof replacements.
WCS planned for the project by allowing previous debt obligations to retire before taking on new financing, he said.
Hoffert said WCS is 13% under the average state taxes “and that is intentional.” He said WCS didn’t want to do a referendum with the project, which would mean going above WCS’ tax cap. He said WCS has debt that is falling off and the school corporation purposely did that so there is no increase in taxes. WCS is not using their maximum debt capacity because there is going to be some needs in the future for other building projects at other schools.
Will Stockdale thanked WCS and the school board for doing their “homework.” He also thanked to the administration for handling operations really well.
He said he had questions about the scope of the work going into the meeting and whether the things looked at were really needed.
He thanked Rolfson for explaining it’s not just convenience and efficiency, but the areas needed to be rennovated were the most expensive to do so. If it is as expensive to rennovate in place as it is to reconfigure in an efficient way, Stockdale said he didn’t see a reason not to proceed.
He did want to encourage WCS if there were any ways to scale back and save in the project, to do so.
In other business, the board:
• Heard an update about summer school.
• Encouraged parents to enroll their children for the 2026-27 school year if they haven’t all ready.
• Heard Tools for School is July 29.
• Heard Headstart will no longer be at Claypool Elementary School.
