Local Editorial Final

Kearney Nebraska is a town of about 30,000 people, but that number is growing rapidly. Kearney is ever expanding in size, and there are many areas in town that are having trouble keeping up with the rapid expansion. Specifically, Kearney has issues keeping up with their expanding school system. This isn’t the worst problem to have when it comes to local issues, but it’s an issue. Not being able to keep up with an expanding school system can mean a few things. Lower quality of education, troubles funding things, no room for students, rushed construction, and more. The Kearney school system has faced each of these issues because of their rapidly expanding school system, and they have not handled it well.

Here’s what needs to be done to combat these issues that KPS is facing. Kearney Public Schools needs to take their time on planning budgets and building new facilities so that they don’t have to make renovations, repairs, and add ons to brand new facilities and ending up spending more money than if they would have taken their time.

One of the first mistakes that KPS has made was the rushing of the new Kearney High School. Ground was broken to start the construction of the new high school in 2014. Members of the school board wanted the first classes to start at the new KHS in the 2016-2017 school year. The construction crews were rushed to complete the gigantic building in two years and they did exactly that, but with many issues. One of the issues that occurred during the rushed construction was drainage issues on the new school grounds that caused flooding. Another issue that arose was the parking lot concrete was an inconsistent thickness which caused large cracks to form. This led to the construction crew having to re-do large areas of the lot of the brand new school. If the board wouldn’t have pushed for the school to be done in such a short amount of time then the construction crews could have taken their time and done these things right, and it wouldn’t have cost KPS the extra money.

Other than rushing for insanely large projects to be finished in a short amount of time, KPS tends to poorly plan their budgets and plans for these large projects. The school system poorly plans their budgets and then asks taxpayers to pay more to support their projects. The school needed equipment for athletics that they ran out of money for in the budget, and had to fundraise but they still fell short of what they needed to raise. Also, even though the new KHS was built in 2016, they are already seeking funding for a 7,295 sq. foot addition to the school for more classrooms. It is possible to plan ahead for these situations by researching trends of young families starting in Kearney.

All of these instances are just examples of how the Kearney Public Schools board needs to take their time and plan for the future. They need to take into account how things will be in a few years, and plan on that. Why rush a school being built when there is no need for it to be rushed? KPS needs to learn from the past to create a better future for their school system.