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Panel offers up two options
Published 10/5/2007 in News : Education By Emily Behlmann
A committee that has been studying options for alleviating the overcrowding at Garden City High School decided Thursday to recommend two options to the USD 457 Board of Education: build a second high school or replace the current facility with a new building.
These two options are among the 10 the group of USD 457 staff, students and community members has been discussing for the past several months. The study group will present its recommendation formally at a retreat Oct. 27, where the school board plans to work on a plan that would meet facility needs not just at the high school, but across the district.
The options of building a second high school and a new high school were the top picks USD 457 staff members indicated when asked on a survey for their No. 1 choice of solutions.
Committee leaders distributed the results of the survey Thursday night.
Of 364 staff members who participated, 98 voted for a new high school and 97 for a second high school.
A community survey with 51 participants ranked "second high school" the highest, with 17 votes, but another option -- adding on to the high school -- also got support. The idea of adding on to the high school was the top choice among 1,103 student participants, with 376 votes.
The committee decided not to recommend the idea, with comments such as adding on could require land purchase and infringement upon current facilities, like parking lots. It also wouldn't help with other concerns high school staff and students have mentioned, like inadequate science labs and an overflowing music building, Associate Principal Bill Weatherly said.
"There still would be 1,900 students going through these halls," said GCHS senior Jarett Payne, a study group member.
According to Deputy Superintendent Steve Karlin, the district would have to add at least 25 classrooms to achieve two of the committee-declared objectives: eliminating the 11 mobile classrooms outside the high school and providing a classroom for each of the 14 teachers who now push materials on a cart.
Phil Boyts, a former GCHS science teacher, said the plan could be achieved by building a level of classrooms above GCHS's parking lot. He said he doesn't think it's an ideal solution, but that the board should have a back-up plan, since the community has twice -- in 1998 and 2000 -- rejected bond issue proposals to build a second high school, and a new, larger high school likely will be even more expensive.
The 1998 bond issue was for $30 million, and the 2000 bond issue was for $33 million.
"If it's voted down, we still would have the problem," he said.
Another option that received support on the survey, especially by USD 457 staff, was placing ninth-graders at middle schools, where they were before 1992.
The study group has said the plan likely would require building a third middle school, plus possibly adding on to the Kenneth Henderson Middle School facility.
Committee members suggesting the option be removed from consideration said Thursday that if they were at middle schools, ninth-graders would be limited in their opportunities to participate in high school activities, like athletics and music, and that they were concerned ninth-graders could be bullies toward younger students.
Also discussed was possible construction of a ninth-grade center, though GCHS English teacher Monte Moser said it, too, would fail to meet facility needs in areas like the music building and culinary arts classroom, even if it reduced overall student population.
It also would add a school-to-school transition to USD 457 students' school careers. Assistant Principal Shelly Kiblinger said that according to research, transitions can have negative impacts such as low grades and social maladjustment.
Removed from consideration without discussion Thursday night were the options of consolidating with another district, establishing two shifts in the day, implementing year-round school, spitting the high school into ninth/10th-grade and 11th/12th-grade centers, and taking no action.
In previous meetings, a sub-committee of the study group has been devoted to each of these possibilities, but each of those sub-committees said in reports that it wouldn't recommend the option.
Several of those at the meeting of about 50 people said they were glad to see two options recommended, so the board could choose a plan that best fit a district-wide perspective.
"We have not just the high school to discuss, but the whole make-up of USD 457," board President Mike Utz said.
Utz has said the committee's recommendation will carry significant weight, since the group members did significant research. However, he said, the survey, and the comments it included, will be considered, too.
The board has the prerogative to select an option not recommended by the committee, and it will receive survey results, since many study group members only saw the survey feedback Thursday night, said group co-chairwoman Jean Clifford.
Clifford said the study group's presentation is unlikely to include a recommended price of either option, or a specific plan for how the current GCHS facility would be used if it were replaced with a new building. The board would need to answer both questions before taking a bond issue to a vote, but it would need to be part of an overall district plan, she said.
Some generic cost estimates for the two recommended options will be developed in time for the Oct. 27 retreat, though it will be up to the board to determine the specifics of what any building would include, so estimates would be honed from there, Karlin said.
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