Consultants present district facilities review as board debates roundhouse flood fixes and gym floor

McPherson — Consultants from Inside Design Studio and district staff presented a top-level facilities assessment and capacity study to the McPherson USD Board of Education on Sept. 8, then the board spent more than two hours debating flood mitigation at the Roundhouse gym after repeated storm-driven floods left water creeping into the building.

The consultants summarized condition grades for every school, facility-by-facility deferred-maintenance estimates, and demographic projections showing a modest enrollment decline. The board then considered consultant recommendations for a new detention pond, temporary flood barriers and whether to approve money to repair and replace the Roundhouse gym floor. Board members did not approve a final spending package on the gym and flood work; they voted instead to delay final action and to hold further facility-focused meetings.

The consultants said their work is an early step in a long-range planning process. “We are early in the process. We’re not here to say that we have solved all the problems,” Aaron Harding, principal of Inside Design Studio, told the board, and asked the board and community to treat the report as the beginning of a conversation. He described the assessment as combining building condition, adequacy for modern education, and safety/security into digestible grades and high-level cost estimates.

Consultants and district staff stressed the findings varied by school. “Each building…they’re C’s for different reasons,” consultant Tony Cash summarized. He and Ashley Markley, the project manager, described site constraints, acoustics, aging HVAC systems and circulation problems as common drivers of lower grades. Dwayne, a lead assessor on the team, told the board staff responses to a district survey repeatedly praised school culture while noting recurring physical problems: worn carpet and furniture, HVAC and control inconsistencies, and non‑secure or suboptimal building entry points.

The presentation included capacity and utilization analysis tied to Rob’s demographic study (RSP). Consultants said the district’s overall utilization was about 69% and projected a small continued enrollment decline over the next five years, with elementary grades declining slightly faster than secondary. The consultants emphasized they used “functional capacity” — the number of students a building can reasonably serve given schedules and program space — rather than absolute maximums.

Consultants provided initial deferred-maintenance estimates (high-level, not bid-level): roughly $13.8 million for the middle school, $15 million for the high school and several million dollars for each elementary (examples cited in the presentation ranged from about $3 million to $12 million depending on the building). The consultants said those numbers represent the estimated cost to restore existing systems and surfaces (roofing, HVAC, finishes), not to add programmatic improvements.

The board discussion shifted after the facilities presentation to urgent storm-related problems at the Roundhouse gymnasium, where severe localized flooding in June and July left the district repairing water-damaged floors and dealing repeatedly with sandbagging and emergency response. Consultants and a civil engineer from Kaw Valley Engineering presented a plan to increase detention storage near the shop area by relocating the existing berm and pumps and expanding the usable pond volume. The firm said enlarging the pond would increase usable storage roughly fourfold and could contain a 100‑year event without water entering the building; consultants said additional work (grading a nearby paved area or installing larger pumps) would be necessary to approach protection for larger, less frequent storms such as a 200‑year event.

Kaw Valley described the technical challenge: the Roundhouse sits several feet below the regional base flood elevation and the existing pond can be unable to discharge during large floodplain events because a 24‑inch outlet and a flap gate can be rendered ineffective when floodplain levels are higher than the pond. The firm proposed relocating the pump and outlet structures, enlarging the pond footprint on school property, and adding temporary deployable barriers while the larger work is designed and bid.

Board members debated timing and risk. Some members said they would not authorize replacement of the gym floor until the flood-mitigation measures were fully in place and proven; others urged quicker action to restore classroom and activity space and avoid ongoing program disruption. One board member said repeatedly that the district could not afford to replace a floor only to have it flood again. The consultants and district staff said the detention‑pond work needs a multi‑week permitting and bidding timeline and that a short-term temporary barrier system could be procured quickly and deployed for the coming weeks while the pond project is finalized.

The board set several next steps: it scheduled community engagement meetings on the facilities plan, asked consultants to produce ranked project buckets for each building tied to estimated impacts on the consultants’ facility grades, and directed staff to bring more detailed cost and timeline information back to the board. The board also set special internal meetings so trustees could focus on facility priorities before community sessions.

Votes and board actions at the meeting were limited and procedural. The board unanimously set two special meetings (Sept. 25 and Dec. 8) to continue the facility process and later entered an executive session on negotiations (both votes recorded in the meeting as 5‑0). The board did not approve a final funding package for Roundhouse flood mitigation and the gym floor at this meeting; trustees agreed to reconvene the discussion the following week with additional cost and schedule detail from engineers and contractors.

Board President Bill and Superintendent Dr. Vincent (titles used in discussion) asked the consulting team to return with a clearer phased schedule that would indicate which mitigation steps could be completed quickly and which would require longer permitting and construction windows. Consultants said temporary barrier options that can be deployed in hours to days are commercially available and described price points they had identified; the board asked staff to provide more complete vendor pricing and an estimated deployment schedule before a final financing decision.

The consultants closed by reiterating the long-range aim: the assessment is the first step in a community-centred planning process that will tie facility investments to educational priorities, financing capacity and community appetite. “We want to be aspirational first… then we’ll have to really have some hard conversations about financing,” Harding said, asking the board and community to use upcoming public sessions to prioritize improvements.

The board adjourned after directing staff and consultants to return with supplemental detail and a proposed phased timeline and budget for the Roundhouse mitigation and gym floor work.