In preparing for the board’s discussion of the facilities master plan and possible bond proposals, I updated my chart showing projected enrollment versus planned building capacity. I thought I might as well post it in case anyone finds it useful. I don’t trust myself not to have made any errors in filling it out, so please let me know if you catch one. The sources are listed at the end.
Notice that the entire table is based on the future elementary and secondary boundaries. So, for example, there are projections for Grant and Hoover East in 2017 and 2018, even though those schools won’t open until until 2019.
This document can give you a good sense of the timeline of projects under the current facilities plan, which was created before the board drew new attendance zones and before we received our latest set of enrollment projections. An overview of the facilities plan, with estimated project costs, is here. More detail here.
6 comments:
Thanks for sharing the table. The first thing I noticed, is those numbers make many of the additions seem unnecessary or at least too large. Borlaug, Garner, Kirkwood, Lemme and South East all seem like they are adding too much capacity. Although the Garner addition might be needed for Penn and Van Allen overcrowding even with Grant opening, and Borlaug might be needed to take some Horn overcrowding.
Will more students be moved to West?
There are a LOT of classroom additions that are not needed. City High, NWJH, SEJH, Lemme, Borlaug.
One addition should be smaller: Garner. Otherwise too large of a school.
The following schools need additions but are not getting them on the plan: Horn, Alexander. If Horn can't get an addition, then instead of the Borlaug addition perhaps another elementary school should be built in SW Iowa City to help with Horn overcrowding.
I believe Kirkwood needs their addition because there is a large development planned just NE of there, and Central and/or Kirkwood need more classrooms to be able to absorb that (& to implement WRAM classroom sizes).
Longfellow and Twain should pair for balance; then Twain does not need an addition for lower class sizes there (according to WRAM). Schools should be balanced!! Saves money on teachers, better for ALL students, and then we don't have to bond for more classrooms at Twain.
QUESTION 1: Grant only growing by 3 students in 10 years? Something is very screwy there since there are two large developments feeding into that Grant site that are already underway; and a 3rd one that will surround the current site for Grant (south of Liberty) will likely be underway when that elementary site is underway. Three new large developments feeding into Grant at that site and essentially no growth? Better check with the company that did those projections!
Question 2: Longfellow will be 358 seats in 2 years (right?).
Question 3: I hope you will ask if NCJH and Liberty are being built in such a way that they are able to take another addition in the future. While the current additions are large enough according to these projections, I think it is likely that it will grow faster than these projections are saying and both of those schools will need more space in the future possibly before 2025-2026.
How do you know capacity is right?
Does every enrollee need a seat for the entire school day?
I agree with anon 1/10/17 @ 2:12. We need to do a better job of balancing the elementary schools. Alexander is in it's 2nd year of operation. We have a capacity of 500 and are not at capacity yet but we already have temporary buildings and have 2 classes being held in make shift classrooms (in the library I believe). Don't get me wrong, the WRAM is working out wonderfully for Alexander but if there would have been balance from the beginning, maybe we would have enough classrooms for all of the students.
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