The Garden City Telegram
Email this story | Add Your Comment
| Read (0) Comments
Phone survey key to facility decisions
Published 1/15/2008 in News : Education
By EMILY BEHLMANN
ebehlmann@gctelegram.com
Garden City residents' responses to a random phone survey coming within weeks likely will be a key factor in the USD 457 Board of Education's decisions on a master facility plan, board members said Monday night.
The board gave administrators the go-ahead at its meeting to finalize a draft of a 66-question survey.
"I think the data will help guide us," Board President Mike Utz said.
Board members are seeking input from the public as they try to develop a facility plan that hinges on a decision between two recommendations for dealing with a crowded high school facility -- adding a second high school or replacing the current school with a larger one.
The board voted in December to hire DeSieghardt Strategic Communications to conduct the survey for no more than $13,800. Ken DeSieghardt, of the firm, said callers from a Kansas City-area phone bank will work until they receive 400 completed surveys -- enough to provide data with a margin of error of plus/minus 5 percent.
In the draft, initial questions ensure that responses all come from registered voters living within USD 457 boundaries.
The survey also questions whether patrons live north or south of Kansas Avenue, and east or west of Main Street. The goal is to obtain an equal number of responses from each quadrant of the city, Superintendent Rick Atha said.
Several questions focus on how voters would feel about building a second high school or a newer, larger one, plus how much they'd be willing to pay on a bond issue.
Yet the draft also mentions other ideas under discussion, like converting Garden City's elementary and intermediate schools into kindergarten-through-sixth-grade centers. Currently, students go to elementary school through fourth grade, then move to intermediate centers for fifth and sixth.
Some on the board questioned whether the survey should go beyond the scope of the high school, but board member Gail Dunford said the decision to be made is "not just a high school issue."
Yet most of the board's discussions have revolved around the Garden City High School. In a master plan recommendation Atha presented Monday night, he suggested a trickle-down effect from each of the two options for the school:
n If a single, new high school were built, the old high school could be converted to a middle school, Abe Hubert Middle School to an elementary school and Garfield Elementary School to an early childhood center.
At a previous meeting, a committee studying the issue said a single early childhood center, instead of classes spread at multiple elementary schools, would enable sharing of resources, staff collaboration and more age-specific assemblies and parent meetings. Garfield was recommended for its central location.
Under the one-high-school plan, GCHS' adjacent J.D. Adams Building could become an alternative school.
The cost to do all of that comes to about $93 million, though Atha said the figure was based on a series of estimates that likely are on the high end of a range.
n If a second high school were built, the district would need to remodel the current high school to make the two equitable, Atha said.
In addition, space still would be tight at middle school and elementary levels, according to administrators. A committee that studies facilities recommended addressing the crowding by adding to Kenneth Henderson Middle School and Buffalo Jones, Edith Scheuerman and Gertrude Walker elementary schools. The group said these schools have space for expansion, and the recommended elementaries are not currently as large as some of the district's other elementary schools.
A further possibility would be conversion of Garfield to an early childhood center.
The high-end estimate for that project was about $83 million.
In other business, the board voted 6-1 to send a proposed 2008-09 calendar back to the committee that developed it. The decision came after it came to light that the committee wasn't fully aware of the ramifications of an April spring break.
Instead of a traditional March break, the proposed calendar set spring break for April 6 to 10. Board member Bruce Reichmuth, a non-voting committee member, said the goal was to place break after -- instead of in the middle of -- the window in which students can take Kansas State Assessments.
GCHS Principal James Mireles said at the meeting that the change would cause problems for high school activity scheduling. Other Kansas schools take their breaks in March, so activities like athletics and music competitions would be occurring during the proposed April break.
The committee wasn't aware of the concern when it chose to move the spring break, said committee member Roni Knight, a teacher at Victor Ornelas Elementary School. With the new information, the group plans to discuss whether it wants to recommend any changes to its proposal.
Found 0 comment(s)!
Twitter Updates
