The Trophy for Poorest Planned School Renovation Goes to LASD

[XLFD]

The last time the Ludington Torch had a story featuring Ludington schools and trophies, it was an instant classic (The Return of the Trophy Girlfriend) with a little bit of everything including tragedy.  This time it's mostly tragedy as the Ludington Area School District (LASD) has decided to throw away its links to past glory.

The Oriole Sports Network on Facebook reports:  "ORIOLE NATION!!! Due to outstanding success in recent years, we've run out of room to display and or store athletic and academic trophies and plaques from past Oriole "Glory Days".

We'd love for them to end up in the hands and homes of past O's coaches, players and families!

Coaches have been contacted and many have already came through and taken trophies and plaques ... however, many remain unclaimed.

If you would like a trophy or plaque ... or to check on the availability of a trophy from a certain sport and year ... come on by the new front entrance of LHS this coming Monday, June 24 or Tuesday, June 25 between 8:30 a.m. and 2 p.m."

While it's a nice gesture for the school to offer up some of these old trophies to those who may have had a part in earning them (albeit they gave the coaches first dibs before all others), one has to wonder why their current school renovations and improvements did not allow enough room to display their school's past athletic and scholastic successes as embodied in trophies, plaques and team pictures.  Their old setup offered a lot of spaces for trophy cases to remind students of what they may someday earn individually or with their team and allow alumni to come by and point out their old accomplishments.  

In the planning of the improvements to the Ludington Middle and High School facilities, they apparently did not allow for enough space for the schools to display their hardware gotten from the hard work and time they put in.  The students that stay in our area and raise families will not be able to get the simple joy and pride of showing their children that they went to that same school and had some success, whether it was as part of the quiz bowl team or the basketball team.  

It continues a recurring theme that seems to have been prevalent with the 'improvements' made after the $101 million bond passed in 2019.  Our district as a net loss, lost three indoor gymnasiums and about ten outdoor basketball courts.  The landscaping, security, and traffic infrastructure near the new elementary were all poorly thought out and saw changes only after the elementary students were moved out there.  

We have lost a lot of ground in our schools of late and now we will throw away and effectively erase from our conscious our schools' academic and athletic history of success in the most concrete form as used to be seen in the expansive array of trophy cases that used to greet you at the high school.  This is a sad time for our school and its alumni.

[woodsman]

  Used to stop and study the old Trophies of Ages Past what Great History and these people who earned them where the best of the best at that time, some State Champions.  Seems to be a lot of History being done away with these days.  What replaced the Honor Area that these Wonderful Pieces of History where displayed?  

[Willy]

This is hard to believe. This sounds like what someone would say as an April fools joke. I guess the fools are the Ludington school system administration. What dummy came up with this plan and what dummies approved it. This situation is as stupid as saying, "the trophy and award case is full, we are no longer accepting any new trophies and awards." I guess stupid can breed just about anywhere.

[Willy]

I also want to add that I understand that many cities have closed down schools because of the reduction of student enrollment. In those situations the schools no longer exist so finding other homes for the trophies and awards makes sense. However, in Ludington's case the school is still there and the awards should remain in the school. Every effort should be made to maintain an exhibition of the awards and trophies that students worked hard to achieve. This reminds me a few years back when the downtown library was giving books away and left them out front and exposed to the weather and all the books were ruined by rain and the wind. This trophy and award  situation shows the same shameful consideration and disrespect for the property of the residence of Ludington.  

[XLFD]

Both you and Woodsman have both got it right.  The fact that they are downloading decades of trophies indicate that somebody, and one hopes that it was one of the school's hired architects and not the school's decision, that the space they reserved for trophies in the past was just too much space.  I hope they have an open house coming this fall for the finished construction so that the community can visit and find out if they retained any spot for achievements and team pictures from the past.  

You build athletic programs best by having students be inspired by those who have succeeded in those programs in the past.  When you get rid of these reminders, you not only take away that inspiration, but also you take away the spirit to excel since their success or their team's success will also not be on public display.

[snide]

What I need to know is HOW did taxes go UP when the new School was built on property owned BY THE SCHOOL DISTRICT and the District SOLD three other properties.......

 WHERE DID THAT MONEY GO...? 

Someone needs to explain just HOW did a historic School building sitting on a full CITY BLOCK "sell" for 20,000 dollars...? You can't buy a garage in the 4th Ward for that amount. 

Is the current owner of Foster school paying the FULL PROPERY TAX RATE as he has done NOTHING with the property for a FULL TWO YEARS..???.! 

 The corruption in this city just gets worse and worse !

[XLFD]

No argument that LASD violated the public's trust in downloading the Foster School property at less than 10% of its worth to a hastily crafted LLC from two Grand Rapids grifters  that have done nothing with the property other than seek tax breaks they weren't qualified to receive from city hall.   Lakeview and PM Elementaries actually were sold for more than their assessments, but this still only netted about $350,000, which is less than 1/2 of 1% of the $101M bond.  

My estimations of where that money went or will go (with what I've read) is $45M to construct the new elementary and develop that site, a little more than that to do the middle/high school improvements, with the remainder going for miscellaneous projects, like the $1.4 million Astroturf field, bus purchases, new field house, etc.

After running tax free in 2022, even after getting the property officially in January 2022, they did pay about $4000 in property taxes last year, according to tax records.