The Facilities Task Force has spoken … sort of.

Austin Public Schools’ community group – focused on solving the district’s increasing enrollment and facility space issues – came closer to finalizing their recommendation to the school board Wednesday night. An overwhelming majority supported a solution that would add a new building to house fifth and sixth-grade. The other popular option would involve building expansions to almost every school in the district.

“The discussion was great,” said Mark Stotts, the district’s finance and operations director. “People put a lot of thought into it and are very conscious of any kind of tax impact of any solution we might arrive at.”

The task force looked at five options district administrators created based on previous feedback from the group. Out of those five, group members discussed options C and D the most.

These five options were narrowed down from 23 plans the group created to solve space issues due to projected enrollment increases, which they looked at during their last meeting two weeks ago, all of which include an expansion or new school of some sort.

The task force came up with the 23 options at a previous meeting, taking into account projected enrollment increases. The group was told to think of solutions that didn’t take costs into account and to lay as many options on the table they could think of.

Possible outcomes

Option C involves remodeling Woodson Elementary School, as well as a building expansion project which would increase Woodson’s classrooms from 16 to 20. Expansion projects would take place at Banfield, Neveln and Southgate Elementary Schools as well, with each school getting an additional four classes. Ellis Middle School would be the center of a large expansion, which would add a new set of sixth grade classrooms. A rough cost estimate of the expansions, which takes several factors into account, came up to about $21 million.

“(Option C) is almost a no-tax increase option,” said Stotts. “It would be a slight tax increase option, but it would be pretty minimal. Your increase would be virtually nothing.”

Since bonds paying for Austin High School’s recent renovations would be paid off this year, a bond issue for the expansions would be almost equal to the renovation bond costs, according to Stotts.

District officials said during the meeting that Option C would largely continue the current educational practices Austin currently runs under. Yet the plan doesn’t address the district’s growing early childhood program which is in a building the district leases with little space to grow in. It also doesn’t take Sumner Elementary’s space needs into consideration and still keeps the neighborhood school model in effect, which means schools like Sumner which have a high ratio of white to non-white students would remain. District officials believe school boundaries would have to be altered under Option C as well.

Option D would involve the same expansion project at Woodson, but would add a new school specifically for fifth and sixth-graders. Elementary schools would host first through fourth grades and Ellis would host seventh and eighth-grade under this plan as well.

District officials estimated the rough cost for Option D to be about $34 million, but some group members wanted Woodson and the other elementary schools to become K-4 schools, which administrators estimated would cost about $31.5 million.

Several district officials shared some of the positive educational aspects of Option D with the task force, like research showing that fewer sixth-graders get suspended if they learn in elementary schools as opposed to middle schools. New computer and science labs would mean more students could use learning technology and at an earlier age, and a fifth and sixth-grade building means fifth-graders could get a band program as well. District officials talked about how fifth and sixth-grade curriculums were very similar and there would be plenty of opportunities for inter-grade learning.

“Personally, as a fifth grade teacher, I would have loved to teach in a 5-6 school,” said Diane Wangsness, school board member. Wangsness used to teach fifth-grade social studies at Neveln.

“That’s just me personally and (not as a board member). It just offers so many wonderful possibilities to teach students,” she said.

The next step for the group is to decide which plan, if any, they should recommend to the school board, which has final say on how to solve overcrowding issues.

“We’ll firm up the plans,” Stotts said.

District officials hope that recommendation comes by the board’s April meeting. The board would have the summer to further research and perform cost-benefit analysis to see whether the task force’s recommendation would work and in line with the district’s five-year strategic plan.

Austin’s school board has until September to accept or work out another plan, as the board has the final decision on whatever solution the district implements. September is the latest a proposal can be approved by the board, in case the district has to put forth a bond issue vote to the community to pay for whatever solution is approved, according to Superintendent David Krenz.

A real need

The district’s student population has been on an upswing since 2002. A 2009 demographic report shows that, based on Mower County birth records and the district’s high student retention rate, 300 to 400 more students will be going through Austin schools five years from now with more projected student increases in the future. A recent facility usage report showed every school except for Austin High School at or over capacity, with some straining to fit students this year.

“There’s no question in my mind that there will be a shortage of classroom space in the future,” said Tom Sherman, used car salesman and one of the task force members.

At the kindergarten level, Woodson Kindergarten Center will have several challenges over the next couple of years. Slightly over capacity this year at 360 kids, Woodson is scheduled to have about 420 kindergartners even with more conservative projections during the 2013 school year. The kindergarten center had a few more students than projected for this year, as well.

School officials responded to a larger-than-expected increase in elementary student growth this year by adding more classrooms, bringing the total amount of elementary classrooms to 79 compared to 71 last year.

Southgate Elementary School is among the hardest hit by the student increases. Southgate is currently up 50 students over last year, which surpassed its projected increase, according to Edwina Harder, Southgate’s principal. As a result, a new second-grade teacher had to be hired and a first-grade teacher was brought over from Sumner to teach a new first grade classroom, which was formed at the end of September.

“We are using every available space that we have,” Harder said in December. “We tried to be very wise with what spaces we had.”