LFC considers possible school building scenarios

At its Jan. 29 meeting, the Lay Facilities Committee (LFC) discussed several school building scenarios and formulated a plan to survey the public.

Plan C, the scenario approved by the CH-UH Board of Education (BOE) last July, would have closed three elementary schools; moved fourth and fifth graders to the middle schools; and, through a combination of renovation and new construction, created learning communities—flexible learning spaces—in all grades. The BOE decided against placing a bond issue on the November 2012 ballot due to insufficient public support, and created the Lay Facilities Committee to recommend a new plan.

Eric Silverman, co-chair of the buildings subcommittee, presented six possible scenarios for the LFC to consider. He began by laying out three recommendations that applied to each: keep the current grade configuration, don’t go “all-in” for the learning communities concept, and reduce the number of middle schools from three to no more than two.

Patrick Mullen, LFC chair, added that a fourth recommendation could be added. “There will be an elementary school in University Heights,” he said.

The subcommittee recommended maintaining the district’s current grade configuration—kindergarten through fifth grade in elementary buildings, sixth through eighth grade in middle schools, and ninth though twelfth grade in a high school. Silverman said the subcommittee considered testimony by district administrators at previous LFC meetings, research studies, and a survey of teachers conducted by committee member Brian Schaner.

“Almost one-third of the teaching staff responded to the survey,” reported Schaner at the Jan. 9 LFC meeting, “While they agree that the transition issue is important, they don’t agree that the district’s proposed configuration is best or that configuration should drive the process.”

Mullen reported that he had discussed the subcommittee’s recommendation on grade configuration with the district administration earlier that day and said that the district prefers K-4 elementary buildings and 5-8 middle schools. Mullen noted that it was clear from the survey that there was concern about putting fourth graders with eighth graders and asked, “What would be the response of putting fifth graders with eighth graders?”

Silverman reported that separating the facilities plan from the concept of learning communities would allow more time to determine the value and validity of the concept and result in potential construction savings. “We can implement components of the concept, such as more communal work spaces, but retain hallways,” he said.

Each of the six scenarios included maintaining the high school at its current location, reducing the number of middle schools from three to one or two, and maintaining four or five of the current seven elementary schools.

Steve Dzuranin of Fanning/Howey Associates, architectural consultants to the district, expressed concern about the idea of using Boulevard Elementary School as the site for a single middle school. “The building would have to be three times the size of the current Boulevard,” he said. “The size would not allow for playing fields at the site.” He said the same would be true if Boulevard were to be one of two middle schools.

Steve Shergalis, director of building services for the district, expressed concerns about attendance boundaries. “If you had both Noble and Oxford as elementary schools,” he said, “it makes drawing boundaries almost impossible. They are too close together.”

Krissy Dietrich-Gallagher, co-chair of the community subcommittee, reported that her group had considered several approaches to surveying the public, including asking about broad community values or asking respondents to evaluate specific scenarios. “We need to know whether we should immediately move forward with a broad survey or hold off until specific scenarios are developed,” she said.

Mark Chupp, volunteer advisor to the community subcommittee, said that he preferred an earlier, broader survey. “The community wants to know what is happening,” he said. “It is important to get feedback before there are limited options or people will question why you didn’t consider other things. When you have scenarios that say which buildings would close, that will get more people to attend community meetings and engage.”

LFC committee members agreed to conduct a broad survey about preferences during February and have the results inform their decisions about scenarios at the March 6 meeting. Dietrich-Gallagher said that her committee would distribute the survey online and would visit, district PTAs, as well as private and parochial schools, religious institutions, libraries and other venues. “We will hit as many as we realistically can in person,” she said.

The next LFC meeting will take place at 7 p.m. on Feb. 13 at Roxboro Elementary School. On the agenda will be a report by the Sustainability Working Group and further discussion of the building scenarios. “At the March 6 meeting at Canterbury,” said Mullen, “we will identify no more than three scenarios to be costed out by district consultants.”

For more information about the Lay Facilities Committee, visit www.chuhfacilities.org or join the discussion at http://theciviccommons.com/conversations/ch-uh-school-facilities.

Deanna Bremer Fisher

Deanna Bremer Fisher is executive director of FutureHeights and publisher of the Heights Observer.

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Volume 6, Issue 2, Posted 3:08 PM, 01.30.2013