Landscape design class presents middle school vision to school board

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City High School’s landscape design class presented a full design concept to brighten the lawn surrounding the Charles City Middle School during Monday’s Board of Education meeting.

Instructor Bret Spurgin told the board his students had been working with Jeff Otto, of Otto’s Oasis, on the middle school landscape design, which includes pine bark mulch, perennials in Comet orange and a six-foot stream and waterfall just under the middle school’s second-floor balcony.

“You have this awesome school, and we wanted to make it look a little better. … The waterfall attracts your eye but doesn’t take too much away from this big, beautiful school,” senior Payton Reams told the board.

Reams and her classmates Blake Frascht and Jackson Boge, both juniors, added that the waterfall will be in view of food service employees’ windows, and that middle school students working from the balcony outside the library will be able to hear the waterfall’s sound.

The group has already presented the project to the district’s Buildings and Grounds Committee and received that committee’s approval. Funding for the landscape work would come jointly from the district’s facilities budget and the middle school budget.

Landscape design will be involved in the design’s installation and maintenance in future years, Spurgin said.

NORTH GRAND BUILDING TITLE

The problem behind the school district’s title to the 500 North Grand building traces back to 1928, when the district didn’t give proper notice to family members of an estate, attorney Danielle DeBower told the Charles City Board of Education on Monday.

The district will have to do a quit title claim through the court system — but the district is required to do due diligence and attempt to track down that estate’s heirs, DeBower said.

The district will have to seek permission from the court to serve notice through newspapers that the heirs of Charles Pfieffer, who died in 1923, would likely receive.

“Our big problem with that is service, since those people are now passed away,” DeBower said. “We’ll have to serve the towns listed in the (property) title where those people were, which is separate states.”

DeBower and Jim Davis, owner of Iowa Title & Realty, are also working with city administrators on streets that were vacated at the property in 1931, but were never recorded with county authorities.

OTHER BUSINESS

High school instructors and students involved with this year’s Project 18 presented the design plans and progress updates for Board of Education members.

Students in agriculture, art, business and journalism are teaming up to design, budget for, build and publicize a tiny house project, with assistance from instructors and business partners.

Art and agriculture students have already been working together to finalize the home’s dimensions, and a single business student will be tracking materials and labor costs throughout the semester, instructors said.

The Board of Education also approved a trip request brought by cross-country coaches Ryan and Amanda Rahmiller. The optional team trip, which takes place every other year, is scheduled for August 2018 and will take students to Estes Park, Colorado, for training. The price is estimated at $475 for students.

The Board of Education approved a foreign exchange student’s request to study at Charles City High School in 2018-2019. Tuuli Jokipi, a student from Seinajoki, Finland, will pay full tuition to attend Charles City High School instead of going through a third-party exchange program. Her godmother was an exchange student in Charles City 30 years ago, the board heard.

Tickets for “The Addams Family Musical” are now on sale through the Charles City Community School District office.