The Camp Verde Unified School District is one step closer to placing a bond on the November ballot.
Superintendent Steve Hicks said during the April 14 board meeting that on April 13, “we chose our consultant, and we had contact with him, and finally moving forward with him.”
The consultant, Paul Ulan with Primary Consultants LLC, has worked with nearly all of the Verde Valley school districts, including the Cottonwood-Oak Creek and Clarkdale-Jerome school districts Hicks said.
The Camp Verde district received three bids before offering the contract to the one it went with, Hicks said.
The consultant will be calling as many of the about 8,000 voters registered in Camp Verde to gauge their opinions on the matter.
After a question from Governing Board President Sharon Petrie, none of the five members said they wereagainst the bond. The consultant’s poll would be to learn how big of a bond the community would likely vote for.
“They’ll find out the tenor of the community,” Hicks said. “How many are excited … what they’re thinking, what they want, and I think he’ll be able to tell us, after this poll, ‘listen, your community is probably not going to go for a high end bond.’”
But the poll can also get a list of priorities, such as the athletics center construction or increased technology, on what voters want so they can gauge how much the bond will be for.
“Personally, I would like to go for a $20 million [bond],” board member Steven Gresham said. “We’ll see how it goes, because I think that maybe we could tie in some other infrastructure.”
Unlike many other schools in Yavapai County, Petrie said CVUSD is growing. In the next 10 years, if current growth trends hold steady, CVUSD will need to expand the number of classrooms it has.
At the previous board meeting, the board approved adding a first grade teacher. Petrie said the elementary school has added 87 students this year, with first grade having the largest need. The bondcould help with that, Gresham said.
The consultant should have results for the board by the next meeting on Tuesday, May 12, Hicks said. During that meeting, the board will discuss the potential bond amounts and possibly vote to place it on the ballot.
CV4C
One of the projects a bond could potentially assist with is the Camp Verde 4 Community sports center the nonprofit announced in December. Although there is a possibility the district won’t have to spend more money on it.
“If CV4C can raise the money, that’s less needed for the bond,” Hicks said following the meeting.
The nonprofit began fundraising after the district signed a memorandum of understanding with it to allow them the use of school district property.
Gresham said he attended a CV4C meeting on April 12.
“One thing that I learned, that I actually felt kind of bad about, is only four people have been getting this thing off the ground,” he said. “And they’ve done an amazing job.”
The nonprofit has recruited some volunteer workers to help with the schematics and engineering at no cost to the organization.
Camp Verde Middle School
The board also approved the appointment of Trish Everline as the new Camp Verde Middle School principal beginning in June for the following school year. She currently lives in Flagstaff and is married to a Sedona Fire District firefighter.
“I had a brief experience of what Camp Verde was two years ago, when [current Principal] Erin [LeBeau] was first moved up to the middle school, and I have been trying to get back in ever since,” she said.
LeBeau is moving to curriculum director for the district, Hicks said.
