How We’ve Reached This Point

Fairmont Area Schools proudly serves approximately 1,800 students in Fairmont, Northrop, Ceylon, and the surrounding rural areas. We are proud of our Cardinals and our school district, and we deeply value our communities.

We are grateful for our communities’ support over the last two decades, including a two-story PK-2 addition at Five Lakes Elementary School approved by residents in May 2010, and an addition to our junior/senior high school to provide additional space and programming for Career and Technical Education (CTE) and vocational programs approved by residents in February 2021.

As a school district, we are continuously planning for the future, and we seek to be a leading and innovative school district that prepares students to thrive today and excel tomorrow. Over the past year, we have worked through a long-range planning process to further understand, identify, and prioritize our facility and educational space needs. Working collaboratively alongside our Operations Committee, our school board has been aligned since the start to responsibly address our most critical needs in a way that also aligns with feedback received many years ago. Milestones in this process included:

  • We completed a comprehensive facility assessment to understand the physical needs of our school, including our building systems (HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc.), building envelope and exterior (windows, doors, roofing, etc.,) and interior finishes (flooring, cabinets, doors and hardware, etc.).

  • We analyzed our educational programs and support spaces across the District to better understand how well our buildings align with student and staff needs, and to identify opportunities for improvement.

  • We completed a utility analysis to measure the amount of energy our buildings are using and compare those levels to similar buildings and past consumption, and understand if there are opportunities to reduce energy or operational costs and save dollars.

  • We gathered internal and stakeholder feedback to comprehensively ensure all facility needs were identified. This included an online staff survey using ThoughtExchange that included 123 participants in August 2024. In addition, a public meeting was held in June to present possible facility improvement options and gather additional feedback.

  • We brought in ICS, an experienced K-12 planning and construction management firm, ISG, an experienced K-12 architect, and Ehlers, our district’s experienced financial consultant. This project team has helped our district throughout the long-range planning process.

  • Using Tremco, we completed a comprehensive roofing analysis to further understand our roofing-related needs, which was presented to the school board and Operations Committee for consideration in April 2025.

  • With the help of Ehlers, we completed a comprehensive financial analysis to review our district’s financial health and identify all available funding options and tools to minimize the impact to local taxpayers.

After all facility needs were prioritized and discussed, they were presented to the school board by the OpCommittee for further consideration. On Tuesday, June 10, the school board approved submitting a Review and Comment to the MDE, the formal documentation required for building bond referendums. On Tuesday, July 22, the school board unanimously approved a resolution to present a single-question ballot to residents on Tuesday, November 4.

Along with our Operations Committee, our school board feels confident the proposed plan best positions our district, facilities, students, staff, and our communities for the future. At Fairmont Area Schools, we seek to partner with our community to serve, lead, and inspire every student.