By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Before consultant Nick Kent even presented the various facilities options it is providing the district, Burlington Area School District Superintendent Peter Smet made one thing clear.
“This is not the end by any means,” Smet said.
And after Kent, of Plunkett Raysich Architects, finished laying out seven different options that would address the district’s aging facilities, it became even clearer that significant discussion is needed before any decisions are made.
After listening to the options – which ranged from shuttering Karcher Middle School to opening up all of Karcher to doing nothing and just performing needed maintenance – Kent and district officials agreed to set up a number of community engagement sessions. The public will get to weigh in on the seven options and choose which parts of each have the most importance.
From there, Kent said, the firm is open to any opinions offered beforehand, which Smet said he would collect and then send to the architectural firm.
Smet said Tuesday that he hopes to have the community forums scheduled sometime in the next week.
The presentation is one of the many steps the district has taken with the firm in order to address aging facilities in light of declining enrollment. The initial facilities study showed that Karcher – which still includes the original high school built in the early 1900s – is in the need of the most fixes, to the tune of more than $5 million if all maintenance items are addressed.
However, the need to address repairs at Karcher isn’t the only issue. With the district in declining enrollment, a trend that is expected to continue for several years, the question of which buildings should be used – and how – remains in play.
The options, as presented by Kent Monday night are:
- Option 1: Maintenance only. This would address the items in the original facilities report, rework several schools for secure entries and remove the outdated track, bleachers and tennis courts at Karcher Middle School.
- Option 2: Expand elementary schools without altering attendance boundaries. This would include a two-classroom addition to Cooper, Winkler and Waller Elementary schools to address capacity issues. Kent added that capacity doesn’t necessarily mean the school is full, but that space needs to be better utilized.
- Option 3: Expand Waller and revise attendance boundaries. This would mean adding six classrooms to Waller – which has the most land available – plus revising attendance at Cooper, Lyons and Winkler schools so that attendance evens out.
- Option 4: Utilize Karcher to its full capacity. Grade 6 would be shifted to Karcher to provide the traditional grades 6 to 8 middle school, Dyer Intermediate would be turned into a fifth elementary school, and grade 5 students would go to their “home” elementary school with attendance boundaries redefined.
- Option 5: Student-centered learning space. This would involve adding classrooms – four at Dyer, Waller and Cooper and two at Winkler – to provide breakout spaces for modern learning via group sessions, and renovating space at Lyons to allow for the same.
- Options 6 and 7: Move the middle school to the high school and close Karcher. Option 6 would be grades 7 and 8, while option 7 would send grade 6 there as well. Option 6 would also involve some classroom additions to various other schools.
Students would share some spaces at different times, but mostly would be separated into different sections of the campus.
Options 6 and 7 would also include the possibility of expanding the athletic facilities at the high school and adding a performing arts center.
Kent pointed out a “con” to the first three options – doing nothing to Karcher. He added that option 4 would not fully modernize Karcher, either.
Discussion on the various options touched on several different issues, ranging from the obvious problems of adding classrooms at buildings that have no good space to allot for the project (specifically Cooper) to whether the ideas were preconceived.
School Board Member Barry Schmaling mentioned the last concern, wondering if board ideas had filtered into the planning process already.
Kent countered by saying that the seven options cover what many people will suggest – and that the seven options are meant to be revised.
“We put these things out there so they’re vetted,” Kent said. “Burlington is not unique.”
Kent said that community engagement sessions would allow the public to weigh in, placing red Post-It notes on ideas they disliked, and green ones on potentially good ideas.
“We’re putting some thoughts on the table,” Kent said. “We want feedback.”
School Board President Jim Bousman said the point is to get feedback, and come up with a supportable plan – both for the taxpayers and future students.
“We don’t want to plan obsolescence into what we’re doing,” he said. “We need to get all of the items out on the table.”
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