Public Comment Sought

[obied]

Public comment sought on high school plans

By BARBARA BRYAN

 

 

After eight months of independent and intensive analysis of capacities, enrollments and building conditions, the Twenty-Year School Facilities Planning Committee for School District 2 is ready for public comment on three ideas for addressing high school problems. Called the “High School Scenarios for Public Comment,” the ideas represent three ways to solve problems of school overcrowding and deterioration.

To gather public comment on the scenarios, the committee will be speaking at some 40 to 50 civic, educational, political and business groups through the end of April. Also, a handout on the scenarios, including a Public Comment Form, will be available through April for public pickup at the north information desk of Lincoln Center. Submitted comments will be considered by the committee in its formulation of final recommendations to the School District 2 Board of Trustees, and will be included in the committee’s final report to the board.

 

What the scenarios accomplish

 

Although they differ in specifics, the three high school scenarios have important goals and characteristics in common:

 

• All three make use of existing buildings. By using existing schools in existing neighborhoods, the scenarios 1) eliminate the need for sprawl-inducing new schools on the edges of town, and 2) control facility operating costs by not adding buildings to the district infrastructure.

 

All three scenarios make use of existing buildings and allocate some 65 percent to 80 percent of their cost to improving existing buildings.

 

• All three emphasize cost-effective methods of taking care of existing buildings and transforming them into superior learning environments. The capital investment for each scenario would accomplish long-delayed deferred maintenance at existing buildings and would create comfortable and attractive interior learning spaces.

 

• All three eliminate overcrowding in individual buildings and in the district as a whole, and provide some excess capacity at each building and in the district as a whole. Some excess capacity is needed to accommodate localized enrollment fluctuations and/or differential enrollment growth.

 

• All three scenarios retain the freshman academies and their benefits. The off-site academies for Senior and West would be replaced with on-campus academies at Senior, West and Skyview. Bringing the academies back onto the main high school campuses keeps them intact but eliminates the disconnect with the high schools felt by some teachers and freshmen.

 

• All three retain the career focus of the Career Center and make additional space available at the facility for career-related instruction. Through expansion of the Career Center building, the use of rooms on-site to be vacated by the West High freshman academy, and/or the addition of ninth- and 10th-graders, more opportunities are created at the Career Center for students who would benefit from trade and career-related education in high school. This population potentially includes the approximately half of SD2 graduates who do not go on to college, as well as those who go on to college but do not graduate.

 

• All three incorporate cost-saving and program-enhancing internet and videoconferencing technologies that can reduce facility operating costs and improve instructional efficiency.

 

• Any one of the scenarios could be potentially implemented for a capital cost of approximately $55 million to $65 million, some $25 million to $35 million less than the amount of the proposed 2004 high school bond. For purposes of full disclosure, the committee is in the process of estimating the impact of the scenarios on current operating costs. Primary operating costs include staffing and utilities.

 

Scenario one: five high schools

 

Overview: Features five schools (Senior, Skyview, West, Lincoln Center, Career Center) with students in grades 9-12 in attendance; all schools renovated; Career Center building expanded; lowest preliminary capital cost of the three scenarios (due to minimal building expansions).

 

Under scenario one, Lincoln Center would become a comprehensive high school for Lockwood students. Preliminary estimates indicate that this idea has the lowest capital cost of the three scenarios.

 

This scenario:

 

• Renovates Senior, Skyview, and West for their existing functional capacities and reduces student populations accordingly.

 

• Creates a fourth comprehensive high school at Lincoln Center, populated with Lockwood students from Senior and Skyview; relocates the Crossroads Alternative School from Grand Avenue to a floor of Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center improvements would include construction of a main gym and parking garage.

 

• Relocates SD2 administration to the Crossroads building on Grand Avenue and Adult Education to Garfield School or another appropriate location.

 

• Retains the career focus of the Career Center and adds building capacity (by means of an addition) to double the current student population; students in grades 9-12 would attend (currently limited to grades 11-12); the facility could be operated as a fully accredited high school with or without varsity sports, OR could continue to operate as satellite facility with students attached to a different school for purposes of sports and official enrollment.

 

• Draws more students to the Career Center from Senior, Skyview, and West.

 

• Redistricts to Senior some students who now attend West.

 

• As used here, the term student population refers to the actual number of students in each school building during the day, accounting for fact that some 2,000 HS students spend some or all of their days at SD2 sites other than Senior, West, and Skyview (i.e., at Lincoln, Career Center, and Crossroads).

 

Scenario two: four high schools

 

Overview: Features four schools (Senior, West, Skyview, Career Center) with students in grades 9-12 in attendance; all schools renovated; classrooms added at Skyview and West; Lincoln Center and Crossroads remain as is, except that the Lincoln freshman academy returns to Senior; mid-range preliminary capital cost.

 

This scenario:

 

• Renovates Senior for its existing functional capacity and reduces its student enrollment accordingly.

 

• Moves Lockwood students attending Senior High to Skyview.

 

• Renovates the Career Center for its current functional capacity (including freshman academy space), and draws more students to the Career Center from Senior, Skyview and West; facility continues to operate as satellite facility, but allows all grades 9-12 to attend part-time and/or full-time for career-focused instruction (currently, only grades 11-12 attend).

 

• Redistricts to Senior some students who now attend West.

 

Scenario three: three high schools

 

Overview: Features three schools (Senior, West, Skyview) with students in grades 9-12 in attendance; classrooms added at Skyview and West; Lincoln Center, Career Center (grades 11-12 only), and Crossroads remain as is except freshman academies return to Senior and West; all schools renovated; highest estimated preliminary capital cost of the three scenarios due to the extent of building expansions.

 

Under scenario two and three, classrooms would be added at Skyview and West and all Lockwood students would attend Skyview.

 

This scenario:

 

• Renovates Senior for its existing functional capacity and reduces its student enrollment accordingly.

 

• Renovates Skyview and West and increases the functional capacity of each by adding classrooms.

 

• Moves Lockwood students attending Senior High to Skyview.

 

• Renovates the Career Center for its current functional capacity (including freshman academy space) and draws more students to the Career Center from Senior, Skyview, and West; facility continues to operate as satellite facility, allowing only juniors and seniors (grades 11-12) to attend part-time and/or full-time for career-focused instruction.

 

• Redistricts to Senior some students who currently attend West.

 

No all-new school

 

Note that an all-new high school building is not part of the scenarios now proposed by the planning committee. The committee’s reasons include:

 

• Construction costs: Building an all-new high school would require expensive duplication of infrastructure that the district already owns. SD2 already owns the foundations, exteriors and interior spaces at our existing schools and at Lincoln Center. By using these facilities that we already own, with some additions, more taxpayer dollars can be allocated to improving and taking care of what we have. During the 2004 bond election, there was significant public sentiment that the $89 million price tag for a new high school and renovations was too high.

 

• Operating costs. Adding a new building to the district infrastructure would add to district utility, maintenance and custodial costs, reducing general fund monies available for other uses. Under the three scenarios, all buildings involved are already being heated, cooled and cleaned. The ongoing shortage of adequate funds for maintaining our schools – the reason our older schools are in such poor condition today – would be worsened by adding an all-new building.

 

• City growth patterns. Population and enrollment trends do not indicate the need for significant new high school capacity in any one part of town. If and when significant enrollment growth does occur, it will likely be divided among several parts of town, including the West End, Lockwood and the Heights. Putting substantial additional high school capacity in one part of town at this time could limit the district’s future ability to meet needs in other neighborhoods.

 

• City sewer and water. A new school built in an area not served by city sewer and water service and adequate transportation routes would add to taxpayer costs and lead to urban sprawl. Without city sewer and water, housing that would spring up around a new school would be low density, driven by the need for one-acre lots to accommodate septic systems. City sewer and water service is not likely to become available any time soon at the district-owned land at 48th Street West and Monad Avenue, due to a high groundwater table and city growth plans. The land is not within West End areas the city plans to serve with city sewer and water in the coming decades.

 

• Excessive capacity. In reality, our high schools are not sufficiently overcrowded to justify the construction of a new 1,200-student high school. Coupled with declining enrollment, the construction of a large new school building could result in SD2 ownership of too much capacity, leading to the possible closure of a high school.

 

The planning committee has taken a practical approach to its planning duties, developing scenarios intended to meet today’s cost and educational concerns, while allowing flexibility for the future.

 

 

Barbara Bryan co-chairs the SD2 Twenty-Year School Facilities Planning Committee with John Eisen. She reports on committee activities, data and progress for The Outpost.