By Rick Harvey
Lovely County Citizen
The Eureka Springs School Board has given the green light for the school district to proceed with the construction of a much-needed cafeteria building for elementary and middle school students.
The school board voted unanimously at its regular meeting on Monday, Jan. 9 to approve the proposed master plan, highlighted by the construction of a new cafeteria building.
The building will have one shared kitchen and separate dining rooms for elementary and middle school students and will be located on a piece of open land between the two facilities.
Architect Josh Siebert presented the plans to the board for the building, which will be just under 10,000 square feet and is expected to cost between $3.1 and $3.5 million, according to Superintendent Bryan Pruitt.
“It’ll now go out for bids and in 30 to 45 days from now our construction manager will get the bids and have a recommendation to our board on who to accept,” Pruitt said. “We think it’s going to be about a 12-month project.”
Pruitt said the new cafeteria will be welcomed to replace an old elementary cafeteria.
“The cafeteria for the elementary is so dated that to get it up to standards, up to code now, we would have to tear it down and rebuild it,” he said. “So, that’s one of the reasons why we decided to build a new one. And right now, in that same old kitchen, we fix meals for the middle school each day and then we truck those meals over to the middle school.
“So, this will eliminate us having to do that as well. We’ll be able to feed elementary and middle school students at the same time out of one kitchen.”
Pruitt said he thinks, if all goes as scheduled, the new cafeteria could be open as early as sometime next school year, but possibly not until the start of the 2024-2025 school year.”
The cafeteria project will be self-funded by the district, Pruitt said, relying on sales tax revenue from the city.
“Because of our taxation in Eureka Springs we don’t get any state funds,” he said. “We don’t get any partnership funds or foundation funds. We generate those locally. It’s all local tax dollars.
“Because of our wealth index and our local taxation as a tourism town, we don’t get any funds from the state.”
In other actions, the board unanimously approved financials for December, accepted resignations from Duane Cosgrove and Susan Williams (effective June 30) and approved the hires of James Porche as a custodian and Amanda Croxton as a food service worker.
The board was also recognized as part of January being School Board Appreciation Month.
“We really appreciate all they do,” Pruitt said of the board. “They’re good stewards of the community and they’re all about putting the kids first. They represent our community well and we are proud, honored and blessed to have them.”

PLANS FOR LOT
Pruitt said also there are now preliminary plans for the vacant lot the district recently purchased adjacent to the elementary school.
“We want to build a transportation and maintenance facility and park all the buses on that land and have a new bus shop and maintenance building,” he said. “And then, where the current bus shop is we want to retro all that into a preschool building.”That would take the preschool classes out of the elementary school and free up those rooms, Pruitt said.
“Our preschool would then be its own separate building,” he said.