Paxton-Buckley-Loda School District Asks Voters To Approve Bonds For School Addition

Voters in the Paxton-Buckley-Loda school district are making a decision about the future of their oldest school building in the November 8th election.

Faced with the need for maintenance work on three of the district’s four school buildings, PBL officials are proposing to tear down 92-year-old Eastlawn Elementary School.

The school would be replaced with a new addition to nearby Clara Peterson School, sometimes called “Clara Pete” for short. The district is asking voters to approve about $31 million in bonds to finance the new addition, plus school building maintenance at both Clara Peterson and PBL High School.

PBL Superintendent Cliff McClure says the proposal has backing from residents who answered surveys and attended meetings about the district’s building plans.

“The community wanted (to build onto) the Clara Pete site”, said McClure. “They also talked about, that they thought it was best to build to replace Eastlawn. They also talked about going ahead with the renovation of two of those older buildings.”

McClure says the alternative to a new school is simply to fix up Eastlawn along with the PBL district’s other school buildings. He says the school board could do that by issuing Life Health Safety bonds that don’t require voter approval. McClure says the cost in the long run would be less than building a new school addition --- but still more than $30 million over the 25 year span that it would take to pay off the bonds being requested in the November 8th referendum.

“If you look over the 25-year time period that I talked about, the difference is only around a million dollars”, said McClure. “So the Health Life Safety investment is $32 million, compared to the bond proposal, which is $33 million, over 25 years.”

All of the PBL’s schools are located in Paxton, but the district covers territory in five counties, mostly Ford and Iroquois.