The previously announced March 4th special meeting on school capacity and enrollment growth has been postponed to a later date (TBD) in order to include additional information related to long-term facilities planning.
At the February 25th board meeting, the Superintendent and staff provided a brief overview of facility capacity solutions that could accommodate anticipated enrollment growth in the short, medium, and long-term.
The Board voted to modify the short-term plan for 2015-16, based on new enrollment projections from our admissions department. Now that most parents of elementary students have completed applications to enroll for the fall, current trends project only two additional classrooms are needed for next year. Classrooms available at Jefferson and Rosa Parks would provide the needed space. Both of these schools would still have at least one additional “flex” space.
While it is unlikely that a third or fourth classroom would be needed in 2015-16, the board voted to prioritize classrooms if needed in this order: 1. Jefferson, 2. Rosa, 3. Jefferson, 4. Rosa, 5. Emerson, 6. Muir, 7. Washington. The option of consolidating three Transitional Kindergarten (TK) classrooms to a single site has been removed from the short-term list of options, as staff indicated this would be logistically challenging for 2015-16.
The Board directed staff to begin developing a mid-term and long-term timeline, including variables and costs involved in options such as portables, new construction or re-purposing of existing sites. Staff will bring a timeline to the School Board on March 11th, and additional information to later board meetings.
The Board welcomes further community input on the mid-term and long-term solutions to enrollment growth once the additional information on costs and other considerations have been developed by staff. A date for a community meeting will be publicized on the web site, e-trees and in the A+ News as soon as it is rescheduled.
You can watch these video clips from the February 25th board meeting on Vimeo for more details:
Board Meeting Item on Facilities Capacity Plan
