obied Posted May 12, 2005 Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 Keyword Search: Past Issues (MM/DD/YY): // Special Reports Unsettling Times MORE SPECIAL REPORTS March 12, 2005 Last modified March 12, 2005 - 1:16 am click to enlarge image 3 proposals offered to ease school crowding By JOHN FITZGERALD Of The Gazette Staff After 10 months of behind-the-scenes work, it's show time for School District 2's 20-Year Facilities Planning Committee. Last June, the committee started looking at the district's school buildings and planning for the future. The committee has come up with three plans and is presenting the plans to as many as 40 groups in the community in an effort to gather public input. The committee will gather this input for another month or so, and then use it to create a final plan to present to the Board of Trustees in June. Involving the public "We're trying to blanket the community with this information," committee co-chair Barbara Bryan told the Midland Empire Pachyderm Club on Friday. "We want to let the public be truly involved in the decisions being made." Bryan and the committee call their three plans "scenarios." Before presenting the scenarios to the Pachyderm Club, Bryan and committee members Tim Cranston and Mike Marnin passed out a statement of problems, shared beliefs and the criteria the committee used to evaluate the scenarios. Bryan summarized their findings: All three scenarios are based on using existing buildings; all emphasize cost-effective ways to use the buildings; all eliminate overcrowding; all call for retaining the Freshman Academy concept at high schools but eliminate the academies themselves; all keep a technical focus for the Career Center; and all call for increasing the use of videoconferencing to eliminate duplicative teaching positions. 3 scenarios A five high school plan. A new high school would be formed at Lincoln Center comprised of all the Lockwood students who now attend Senior High and Skyview High, along with the students from Crossroads Alternative School. The committee is looking at the feasibility of building a gym, auxiliary gym and parking garage where Lincoln Center's parking lot is now; they also want to talk to the city about using the public library for the high school's library. School district administration would be moved to the Crossroads building on Grand Avenue and adult education classes will move to rented space. The Career Center would be expanded to accommodate grades nine through 12. The school would operate as a fully accredited, four-year high school with or without varsity sports. This accreditation will mean more students from the other high schools will elect to attend the Career Center to take advantage of its occupational focus. Senior, Skyview and West would be renovated for between 1,500 to 1,600 students. A four high school plan. Lockwood students would be transferred from Senior to Skyview. Senior would be renovated to handle the lower number of students. Skyview would be enlarged to handle the Lockwood students. West would be enlarged to handle its population. The Career Center would be beefed up into a four-year high school but with no expansion. Crossroads would remain as it is. A three high school plan. Lockwood students would be moved from Senior to Skyview, which would be expanded to handle the additional students. West would also be expanded. Senior would be renovated to accommodate fewer students. Crossroads and the Career Center will remain unchanged. Bryan said each of the three scenarios might cost between $55 million and $65 million. Bryan was asked if the committee looked into moving ninth-graders out of the high schools and into middle schools. She said they discovered that nationally there are very few middle schools with ninth-graders. Educators both in Yellowstone County and outside say having ninth-graders in middle school is not an educationally sound practice. One woman asked if the committee looked at reducing the education cost per student in School District 2. Bryan said her committee was given the task of looking strictly at the facilities. Former Rep. Bruce Simon asked if it would cost less if a new high school was created in Lewis and Clark Middle School rather than at Lincoln Center. "That scenario raised more questions than answers," Bryan replied, saying that someplace to house the Lewis and Clark students would have to be found and it's not a good idea to put them downtown. To comment Copies of the three proposals offered by the 20-Year Facilities Planning Committee are available at the information desk at Lincoln Center, 415 N. 30th Street. Information about how to comment is included with the packet. 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