Iowa City School Board Leaning Toward Closing Hoover Elementary School?

At the beginning of the evening work session for the Iowa City School Board, the main point of contention between two district facilities plans came down primarily to what to do with three elementary schools: Hills, Hoover, and Lincoln.

One scenario from the facilities committee recommended closing all three. The other recommended closing just Hoover.

In the end, the board reached consensus that they'd like to upgrade the innards of Hills but keep it much the same as it is now -- for the time being. They also, almost, came to an agreement on the need to close Hoover.

The board ended up asking staff to develop two scenarios for them to consider, one with Hoover staying open and City High not expanding, and the other with City High expanding and Hoover closing. These two choices likely will be at the school board agenda for next Tuesday's meeting.

Closing Lincoln was never debated during the three hour work session where, while nothing was voted on, it could provide a preview of the final vote at a future meeting. However, there appears at this moment to be no strong proponent on the board for the closure of Lincoln, so it is presumed safe.

Also saved from the chopping block was the Theodore Roosevelt Educational Center, which the board reached a consensus early on to remove from consideration for closure. 

I will now go into the rationale made by the board for each of those decisions.

Hoover Elementary School

The argument for closing Hoover was primarily made on two points: that Hoover needed to be closed to allow the expansion of nearby City High School, and that at least one elementary school needed to be closed to compensate for the increased operational cost of opening three new elementary schools in the next 10 years.

This didn't mean that the school board arrived at a near consensus lightly. In fact, most board members appeared to be leaning toward wanting to keep Hoover open at the beginning of the meeting.

Board member Tuyet Dorau suggested that if the new schools were built around the same time they could be used as so called "swing schools" allowing students to be moved out of different elementary schools while they are renovated. This would obviate the suggested use of Hoover as a swing school, one of the reasons the facilities committee favored it being slowly phased out.

Fellow board member Sarah Swisher also appeared extremely reluctant to closing Hoover from the beginning, saying that the district should stick to the pitch made during the Revenue Purpose Statement pitch prior to it being approved.

“I haven’t seen data that compels me to believe that we have to close any of our schools,” she said. "Hoover is a really diverse community, and I don't support closing Lincoln, either."

But, slowly, the tide started to turn against Hoover.

Board member Jeff McGinness argued that from an operational cost perspective, not closing an elementary school would lead to higher class sizes. He also argued that the City High facilities are already challenged by the size of the current student population, in the sense that they cannot handle the traffic of students and all of their onsite sports now, let alone with 300 additional students.

"I support an addition to City High, but only if the Hoover space is utilized to do it," McGinness said.

Dorau argued that with the population of West coming down, she didn't necessarily see the need to expanding City High. The rest of the board seemed unconvinced.

Although the administration still stubbornly refused to take a position favoring either scenario, they did make it clear that there would be "trade offs" from keeping all of the schools open.

Craig Hansel, who manages the district's finances, said that not closing any schools could feasibly work financially from an operational cost standpoint, but with every additional elementary school costing roughly $500,000 more a year to run, cuts that would either come in the form of lower than historic teacher raises or in the reduction of teachers and subsequently higher class sizes.

"In my (budget) modeling, class sizes had to go up in order for the general fund to pay for the new buildings in the sequence we are looking to add them," Hansel said.

Superintendent Steve Murley attended the meeting via phone, and indicated that the administration feels it would struggle to meet class size requirement set forth by the board if all elementary schools remain open with the additional three elementary schools coming online.

These two elements came together to begin changing minds of the board members.

"I know it's really hard to close an elementary school, but we need to look at the big picture here," said board member Sally Hoelscher "I think to do that we may need to close Hoover."

Board member Patti Fields, agreed, saying she was uncomfortable loading future boards down with a class size problem that this board might cause by not closing a school.

"I think that's the only way to expand City High," she said.

Board president Marla Swesey asked when Hoover would need to be closed. David Dude, director of district facilities, indicated that it would make sense to close it right before opening a new City High addition, which could mean at the end of 10 years.

Swesey said that if the need was clear after that period then closing Hoover would be an option she could support, grudgingly.

"I don't know I guess I can live with that, with Hoover staying until we need that space for City High," she said.

Swisher also appeared to soften on the question of closing Hoover toward the end of the evening, although she said that the board had failed to prepare the public for the possibility.

"If we were thinking about closing schools we probably needed to say so in January," she said.

Dorau asked to see a version of a scenario without a City High expansion and with Hoover remaining open to see the difference Hoover remaining open would have on operational costs.

Hills Elementary School

McGinness also argued for the closing of Hills Elementary School prior to the Hoover discussion for similar reasons: running a smaller school such as Hills is more expensive than running a larger elementary school, and higher costs lead to higher class sizes.

He also argued that the district's land acquisition off nearby Sand Road could be used to build a school that would absorb the Hills attendance area, as well as alleviating an overcrowded Grant Wood Elementary School.

McGinness, in this case, was overruled. As board members argued that Hills was a special case where the district needed to support the school even at a lower staffing level.

Dorau added that with growth the corridor maxing out, building along Sand Road and in Hills was the likely place for rapid expansion in still growing Johnson County.

Swesey agreed, saying she believed the less expensive living expenses would attract families to Hills.

 "It sounds like we're somewhat in consensus that we want to keep Hills," she said.

Although both plans called for Hills either to be closed or replaced with a new, larger capacity building, Swesey pressed physical plant director Duane Van Hemert to explain what it would take to upgrade the building to keep it going for long enough for the board to see if the school's population would be more viable.

Hemert said the boilers would need to be replaced, as well as the electrical system, the school would have to be connected to the municipal water supply and a sprinkler system added. Dude said these improvements would be similar to other elementary schools in the plan that are receiving upgrades without significant add-ons.

Besides that Van Hemert conceded the building could be maintained as is for quite some time.

"It's good to know that we can keep doing work on that building and keep it going for some time," Swesey said.

The Theodore Roosevelt Educational Center (TREC)

The decision not to consider closing TREC as part of their plans was the easiest one of the night for the school board.

McGinness, the most supportive of closing buildings to gain operational savings during the meeting, said that closing TREC was added on toward the end of the last meeting of the facilities committee as a possible swing school option. He said it hadn't been properly vetted by the public or discussed much by the committee.

"I really think it was one of those things that was added late in the process, and late in the evening," McGinness. "I certainly don't support closing TREC."

Board members Hoelscher and Karla Cook pointed out that the district's home schooling and several off site programs had finally found a home in TREC, and to close it without their input on where they could be reintegrated into the district would be unwise.

"There wasn't much discussion of where they (the TREC students) would go, and that was of concern for me," Cook said.

"For that reason I would be hesitant to do that without vetting it with the teachers at TREC or the community," Hoelscher said.

The board quickly came to a consensus on eliminating the closure of TREC as an option. It was an easy decision for them in a night with few easy answers, and a week with an even tougher choice ahead.