Dear Barker Learning Community,

It is amazing another year is about to turn the clock and we will officially see 2025. It seems like just yesterday we were all worried about Y2K and it has now be a quarter century since then!

I don’t know about all of you, but I am truly looking forward to the upcoming holiday season and spending time with family and friends. I hope you are able to do the same and enjoy the festivities.

This edition of The Banner is chock full of great things going on around our campus. And there sure have been a lot of great things! Our new multi-purpose field is in full swing, the changes to our parking and traffic patterns have taken hold, and we are now deep into renovations on the inside of the building. We will be completing work on the inside over the next 9 months with the majority of work set to be completed by the start of the school year in September. Our timeline of work has certain areas of the renovations being completed at different times throughout the rest of this school year, with the first of these areas hopefully being completed in late February. These upgrades are just the first steps in bringing our entire facility up to par for us to continue providing the best possible education we can for our students and community.

Our Facilities Committee (Tom Mallon, Jon Dewart, Francine Ware, Alexandra Fuerch, Todd Sukdolak, and Board members Randy Atwater, Emily Gow, and Deanna Carnes) and the entire Board of Education have been continuing the discussion related to our facilities over the summer and fall. After a great amount of discussion, the Facilities Committee recommended bringing another project to the voters for approval in the amount of $14,000,000. And, at a special meeting held on November 26th, the Board of Education approved a vote for this work to take place on January 14, 2025.

This new project, if approved by the voters, would continue the work started two years ago and see additional improvements to our campus. Nearly all of these improvements would be to the school building and would include, but not be limited to, renovating a large number of classrooms, hallways, windows, increase available emergency power to most of the campus, replace our public address system, fix emerging issues related to brickwork around the building, and replace our aging athletic track.

If this work is approved by the voters, nearly 75% of our entire building will have been renovated since 2022.  This work is all sorely needed as the spaces being renovated have not been touched in more than 40 years in some places. This work would ensure our students have a learning environment that is as good as possible to learn well into the future.

Take a good look at the proposed work that is shown on the following pages within the Banner for greater understanding of the proposed work. Also, please try to attend one of the informational meetings we will hold about this work on January 2, 2025, or January 6, 2025 to hear more about the proposed work. Each of these informational sessions will be held in the elementary cafetorium at 7:00 PM.

I wish each and every one in our community the best as the new year rolls around. Please stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Jacob L. Reimer, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools