By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The St. Joseph School District's Vision Forward Committee held its final meeting of the 2021-22 school year Tuesday at Benton High School, and the discussion focused around the district's buildings and facilities.
Vision Forward co-chair Bob Miller says one of the main issues right now with the district's buildings is age.
"Over a third of our current buildings are over 80 years old," Miller told St. Joseph Post. "Nine of our 25 buildings were built before 1940."
One of the top priorities for the district is getting middle school curriculum aligned. Two of St. Joseph's middle schools educate sixth through eighth graders, while the other two educate only seventh and eighth graders.
"Getting (the middle schools) lined up really forces the facility question," he said. "We don't have a third middle school that can house sixth graders. So, we have to figure out what we're going to do. That's either building another middle school or repurposing one of the high schools if we go in a different direction with the high schools."
Miller says another priority is creating a better feeder system within the district.
"For instance, Carden Park (Elementary) gets divided up into three different middle schools," he explained. "There's only a handful of elementary schools that actually feed straight into a middle school, straight into a high school. Those kids who have relationships aren't able, currently, to track through their schooling experience with the same group of kids."
With middle school football now coming to the district this fall, Miller says that raises some facility questions, as none of the middle schools currently have football fields.
"Repurposing some of our current high schools to being middle schools that would have the athletic facilities needed to give middle school students the opportunity to participate," Miller said. "That was kind of one train of thought on feedback we got."
Voters rejected a $107 million bond issue last April which would have converted the American Family Insurance regional headquarters into a second high school and refurbished Central High School. Under that proposal, Benton and Lafayette would have been turned into middle schools.
Miller says there is consensus that some new school buildings are likely needed, but no plans on that have been finalized.
"It's not difficult to look at some of these things and see we need to make some changes," he said. "We just can't continue with this. I think there was a lot of consensus, and you heard a lot of the same top three priorities related to facilities moving forward. About 75-80 percent of people named the same three things."
Vision Forward plans to meet with the public at least once more this fall before putting action items before the board in December. District leadership is also meeting with a consulting firm this summer to look at data and input that's been gathered.
With five meetings this school year, and hundreds of people attending these meetings, Miller is hopeful that the district is getting an accurate picture of what St. Joseph School District families want from their schools.
"If we missed the public sentiment, it's not for a lack of trying," Miller stated. "Having five different sessions in different parts of town and also having the option for people to listen online."
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