By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Facing a long list of options, Burlington Area School District officials on Monday waded through and narrowed the focus of what it will do with the district’s facilities study.
With 11 options – plus variations – on the table at Monday night’s BASD School Board meeting, the board narrowed the options to six, added one and planned to make a version of one other a part of all the plans.
The options, as narrowed by the board Monday night, are:
- Utilize Karcher Middle School to its full capacity, including shifting sixth grade to Karcher; turn Dyer Intermediate School into a fifth elementary school and sending all fifth graders to the elementary school buildings.
- Combine the middle and high school into one site at the current Burlington High School site, adding space as needed to BHS. This would also involve closing Karcher Middle School and moving sixth grade to the separate middle school space at the current high school.
- Tear down Karcher Middle School and build a new facility on that site, also taking sixth grade to the middle school and turning Dyer into a fifth elementary school.
- Renovate and rebuild Karcher and use it to its full capacity, again taking sixth grade to the middle school and turning Dyer into a fifth elementary school.
- Build a new elementary school and convert Dyer back into the district’s middle school. This would involve demolishing the existing Karcher building.
- Build a new elementary school on the current Karcher site; demolish the current building there, and consolidate the middle and high schools to the high school grounds.
- Put together a separate plan just for the addition of sports and performing arts facilities at the high school.
All school renovations will also be done with the concept of student-centered learning spaces. This would allow for students to have small breakout sessions in spaces put together for that purpose, and less of the traditional classroom space.
Any replacement of Karcher would have to include an athletic field for the large track and field team at the school, at about 100 members.
Also, all schools would require revisions or rebuilds to allow for secure entrances.
“We wanted to have the board to have the opportunity to do exactly what they did,” said Superintendent Peter Smet Tuesday.
“We went through the brainstorming process,” he said. “Anything was appropriate in that brainstorming process.
“Some of these options are just not very practical,” Smet added.
Eliminated from the list was simply performing all the needed maintenance on all the sites; adding on to various elementary schools; and expanding Waller only.
Smet said the next step in the process will be a pair of community meetings to discuss the options, but there is no time schedule or locations set yet for the meetings.
While he didn’t rule out the idea of having the item on the November ballot for referendum, he did say it wasn’t a priority.
“It’s more important that we go through and choose the right option rather than hurry to a specific date,” Smet said.
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