City school district kicks off bond issue campaign

Com­mu­nity lead­ers get a first look at how Delaware City Schools could trans­form if vot­ers approve a $50-million bond issue. Artist ren­der­ings and archi­tects’ aer­ial maps were pre­sented dur­ing a bond cam­paign kick-off event Thurs­day evening at Willis Inter­me­di­ate School.

KATE LIEBERS

Staff Writer

“But what dif­fer­ence will it make to education?”

The ques­tion was posed to Delaware City Schools Super­in­ten­dent Paul Craft at the district’s bond cam­paign kick off event Thurs­day night at Willis Inter­me­di­ate School.

About 80 peo­ple filed into the audi­to­rium to hear Craft, trea­surer Melissa Lee, and cam­paign lead­ers explain why the district’s need for the 3.6-mill bond issue – expected to gen­er­ate $50 mil­lion – is so dire.

The mea­sure would cost home­own­ers about $60 per $100,000 of res­i­den­tial val­u­a­tion every year for 37 years.

Craft’s response to the ques­tion of edu­ca­tional ben­e­fit revolved around a prob­lem made evi­dent by the col­lec­tion of mobile class­room trail­ers parked out­side three of the ele­men­tary schools.

“As of right now, we can’t phys­i­cally fit our kids into the build­ing,” Craft said.

Many class­rooms have up to 30 stu­dents. Many spaces used as class­rooms were once intended to be teach­ers’ lounges or even, accord­ing to board vice pres­i­dent Harry Pape, broom clos­ets. Over­crowded class­rooms trans­late to less time a teacher can spend with any indi­vid­ual stu­dent, and host­ing classes in alter­na­tive spaces – such as the out­door trail­ers – can lend to a feel­ing of isolation.

These prob­lems stand to get worse, Craft said.

He said five of the eight school build­ings are over capac­ity, with more pro­jected to exceed their lim­its in upcom­ing years. The grad­u­at­ing class of 2012 had 305 stu­dents, which is 175 fewer stu­dents than the cur­rent fifth grade class, Craft said.

While larger classes even­tu­ally edge closer to clog­ging Hayes High School, the dis­trict also is see­ing a con­tin­ual rise in num­ber of fam­i­lies mov­ing into the dis­trict, Craft said.

Adding wings to every school build­ing except for Willis would alle­vi­ate the over­crowd­ing prob­lems. Carlisle, Smith and Wood­ward ele­men­tary schools no longer would need to con­duct classes in trail­ers, and schools host­ing gym class in the cafe­te­ria would receive an actual gymnasium.

Hayes could grow by 20 to 26 class­rooms, as well as Dempsey Mid­dle School. Every ele­men­tary school also would see a growth of sev­eral class­rooms: 13 pro­jected at Carlisle, 12 at Schultz, 10 at Wood­ward, seven at Con­ger and six at Smith.

All the ele­men­tary schools would be able to accom­mo­date all-day kinder­garten – another edu­ca­tional ben­e­fit of the bond funds, Craft said.

The bond rev­enue also would address cur­rent safety haz­ards, Craft said dur­ing a slide show presentation.

More park­ing space would be added to all build­ings except Willis, and many build­ings’ traf­fic routes would be reconfigured.

Wood­ward could receive an entirely new traf­fic loop off of South Lib­erty Street street, which would relieve con­ges­tion dur­ing school pickup and drop-off hours. A Wil­low Run Lane exten­sion would be con­structed at Schultz.

All build­ings would be ren­o­vated to meet the cur­rent indus­try secu­rity standards.

At Con­ger, for exam­ple, a new entry­way at Win­ter Street would cre­ate an area where vis­i­tors would be checked in by front desk staff before being allowed into the inner classrooms.

If the bond passes, the con­struc­tion would begin in 2013 and poten­tially fin­ish by or before the 2016–17 school year.

Ulti­mately, the bond would return the dis­trict to a tra­di­tional grade align­ment: kinder­garten through fifth grades at the ele­men­tary schools, sixth through eighth grade at the mid­dle school, and grades nine to 12 at the high school.

Willis would pri­mar­ily become an admin­is­tra­tive build­ing, while host­ing some vir­tual learn­ing class­rooms and pro­vid­ing space for com­mu­nity organizations.

Still unknown is when the grade lev­els would tran­si­tion from one school to another.

This time­line would not be deter­mined until after a bond pas­sage, dis­trict spokesper­son Jen Ruhe said, yet it is unlikely that such changes would hap­pen before 2015.

Other ques­tions may remain unan­swered until the bond passes, yet Thursday’s event marked the first time con­cep­tual maps were pre­sented to the public.

The bond dis­cus­sion will con­tinue dur­ing a series of “Town Hall” meet­ings lead­ing up to the May 7 election.

Those dates include:

• April 2: Con­ger Ele­men­tary, 10 Chan­ning Street, at 6:30 p.m.

• April 3: Wood­ward Ele­men­tary, 200 S. Wash­ing­ton Street, at 6:30 p.m.

• April 9: Carlisle Ele­men­tary, 746 State Route 37 West, at 6 p.m.

•April 10 : Smith Ele­men­tary, 355 N. Lib­erty St., at 6:30 p.m.

• April 11: Schultz Ele­men­tary, 499 Apple­gate Lane, at 6:30 p.m.

• April 17: Hayes High School, 289 Euclid Ave., at 6:30 p.m.

Posted by Kate Liebers on Mar 22 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.