To Close Three Schools or Not to Close Three Schools? It's Up to the School Board Now

Note: This PDF above represents the scenarios before they were modified during the facilities meeting tonight. The changes to the scenarios are outlined in the story below.

It took four hours following months of deliberation and public workshops but the Iowa City School District Facilities Steering committee finally settled on two scenarios to forward on for consideration by the Iowa City School Board Wednesday evening.

This committee was formed after the district and school board received the go ahead nudge from the public with its approval of the district's Revenue Purpose Statement earlier this year, allowing the district to borrow against future sales taxes for the use on the building of new schools and the renovation of old ones. The facilities steering committee, with the help of consultant BLDD Architects and public input, was established with the task of recommending just what the school board and thus the district should do with that money.

The scenario that the district favored by the end of the night? Narrowly a modified 1D, which itself was a modified 1C, which originally was the plan that most closely resembled the pitch made by the district during the RSP campaign that includes the building of three new elementary schools and the opening of a third high school, along with the modification of other district schools.

So what does that mean? 

The facilities committee entered the evening with four scenarios attached in PDF format to this article, and narrowed it down to two scenarios 1D and 4C, to recommend to the board. I will outline the scenarios that they ended up with which are very similar at the junior high and high school level and then vary at the elementary school level. I will go through how they address each level.

Note: These scenarios were reached by a general consensus process, but that didn't mean there was overwhelming agreement.

High School

In both scenarios the consensus was that there should be an eventual third high school built and an addition to City High School. The desire of the committee was to have City High School, West High School, and a third high school in the North Corridor to be named later to end up with between 1,400 and 1,600 student enrollments upon the opening of the third high school.

In one of the scenarios, Scenario 1D, the Theodore Roosevelt Education Center (TREC) would be closed. The TREC currently being used as a repurposed special programming hub for troubled and physically and mentally disadvantaged students, as well as the district's homeschooling program, and the idea would be that these programs could be reintegrated into  the new building spaces. The TREC could meanwhile be used as a "swing school" before eventual retirement. In 4C the fate of the TREC is left up to the school board.

I'll get back to the TREC and swing schools in a little bit.

Junior High

To accommodate the slightly larger enrollment at the third high school, an expansion would be added in both scenarios to the third high school's feeder school North Central Junior High. 2C, the only scenario that would have dramatically changed the junior high level by making the grades 5-8, was summarily dismissed due to its lack of a clean feeder system.

Elementary School

This is where the big differences emerge, and where modifications were made during the evening to the presented scenarios.

In Modified Scenario 1D

It was suggested at the beginning of the evening that Mann and Longfellow Elementary Schools could be rebuilt on their current sites to deal with some of their existing issues. During the meeting this idea was nixed in favor of doing historical reconstruction on the existing buildings with slightly lower capacity, no lower than 350 students.

Hoover Elementary School would be converted into a "swing school" until it was no longer needed, then it would be retired, allowing the eventual expansion space for City High School. This expansion space, however, should not be used for a parking garage, because so sayeth the committee.

Hills Elementary School will be rebuilt on site, increasing the capacity so the planned 100 student addition was no longer needed. Physical plant director Duane Van Hemert argued for the rebuilding of Hills on site due to the school's wooden frame and inadequate electrical system.

"I hate to be that hard on it but it's just a weak structure," Van Hemert said.

It was pointed out that Hills Elementary with a larger capacity might mean more busing to the school as only 44 students in the district currently live in the Hills attendance zone. However, Hills Mayor Tim Kemp argued that a new Hills Elementary School, along with the city's already increasing growth, would mitigate the busing issue over time.

In Modified Scenario 4C

4C was initially formulated as a counterbalance showing how much lower of a yearly operating cost could be achieved if schools were closed. It retains that function in the final form, but with changes to 1D the gap between operational costs has narrowed a bit.

David Dude, the district's chief operating officer, says the evening started with 4C being $1.1 million more cost effective per year in operating costs compared to 1D based on his calculations of what it costs to run schools, which would need more vigorous analysis before they were ultimately adopted. Dude said in the final form it would still be likely that 4C would be the more cost effective option, but he wasn't sure if the gap may have narrowed even further with the potential TREC closure.

"I would have to run the numbers again," Dude said.

So what created this savings? Functionally the primary difference between 4C and 1D now is that 4C currently calls for the closing of Hoover, Hills, and Lincoln Elementary Schools, whereas as 1D currently just closes Hoover. Dude conceded during the meeting that the closing of TREC in scenario 1D likely would not yield significant operational savings on the level of an elementary school.

It is interesting to note that when the committee was initially voting on individual aspects of what would improve the four plans via anonymous instant feedback clickers, the slight majority was consistently in favor of keeping Hills and Lincoln Elementary School open. However, as the meeting went on committee members began to worry that they weren't going to be able to present multiple options to the board.

When asked if the board wanted more than one scenario from the committee, committee and board member Jeff McGinness said that the board was prepared to accept either or.

"I think when we first talked about it, we said if it's one recommendation it's one, if it's more then it is more," McGinness said.

The momentum of the meeting, however, moved towards establishing two different scenarios with different building blocks, and the idea closing the elementary schools began to be debated on their individual merits for each school.

At this point committee member Rod Sullivan said that this should just be included in one of the scenarios as a distinguishing point.

"I think what it comes down to at this point is do you want to close these elementary schools or not?" he said.

The committee then voted not on whether or not to let the board decide whether to chose a scenario that would close the elementary schools or not, and the yay vote made for the creation of a distinct 4C.

The TREC Question

As previously noted, the process to reach these final two scenarios was sussed out after the 16 facility members broke into small groups and recommended changes to the four remaining scenarios. This allowed some suggestions to come up that hadn't been considered before, such as the closing of the TREC.

In the voting, the majority of committee members favored closing the TREC and reincorporating the programs into the new additions. This appeared to vex board and committee member Jeff McGinness, who wondered aloud about the feasibility of doing away with a building that the district had already decided to retrofit for the programs after failing to sell it.

"The second part of it is what becomes of Roosevelt then, when we're also trying do right by the community by keeping the building open?" McGinness asked.

There was no clear answer for what would become of the building, although it was suggested that the building could become another swing school as construction happens during the execution of this plan, an idea seconded by Van Hemert as a good use of the space.

"I am going to need more than one swing school as this construction happens," he said.

Dude said the inclusion of the TREC closing surprised him as well, but as the two scenarios represented building blocks that the board could use to assemble their ideal scenario, it could be added to one of the scenarios to provide another difference. This was then voted on to be added onto 1D.

So What are Swing Schools?

Swing schools, as they were described during the meeting, are functional district buildings that can be used to house students for a school year while extensive work is being done renovating or completely constructing new or retrofitted schools.

Van Hemert spoke several times in favor of the swing school concept, saying it was not safe or desirable for elementary school children to be present during extensive construction.

"Any school where you're going to do a total renovation on you should consider moving them to a swing school during the construction," he said.

It was unclear how this process would take place and how long these swing schools would need to operate in limbo would likely depend on the timing of other plans for district facilities, such as the need for City High to eventually expand.

A Bit of Reaction

The committee members seemed mostly pleased and relieved after they rendered their decision unto the board. Board member McGinness, despite appearing a bit tired after the four-hour marathon committee meeting, said he was appreciative of the committee process and the options it had provided.

"I'm glad we went through this process and I'm still cautiously optimistic that the board will be able to make some good use of these recommendations," McGinness said.

Parent and school board candidate Jim Tate said during the meeting that he is hopeful that politics remain out of the minds of the board, as the September school board election, which could replace three key board members, looms ahead.

"Whatever happens I just really hope that the facilities discussion isn't rushed, that the decision is well thought out," Tate said. "There's gotta be some good debate on it going forward."

The school board will receive a presentation on the recommendations from the committee at its July 9 meeting.