OpEd: School Beat: Background; AdHoc Planning Committee:

(Ed.note: This is a summary of some of the history of school development in Evansville--the audio and video of some of these meetings can be found at: http://woulfe98.hipcast.com/rss/evansville-school-district-meetings.xml
This audio and video is available on search free from Itunes, as well as Mediafly podcasting. )



The current bonds that the Evansville Schools have is not the original funding that they had at the time of construction----after they completed the building, they discovered that they were short on unfunded pension liability and refinanced till 2021. At the time of the refinancing they had to settle for back loaded bonds, or bonds where the payment went up every year till maturity----they were hoping that the appreciation of real estate and growth would ---somehow---make things relatively cheaper and more affordable. The problem with that logic was that there was not the proper analysis of what the effect of growth would be on funding by the state or by an early exhaustion of the resource.

Then, right as they took occupancy of the new school configuration, they switched from half day kindergarten, which had been the standard for 30 years or so, and switched to full day kindergarten----that had the effect of raising the revenue as well as the expenses---and again the effect of changing the time of reckoning for new school space.

Finally---at the time of the study in 2000, there was a "maximum utilization rate" used and used a fixed square foot per student as the standard for describing need. In 2007, at a meeting at city Hall, Supr Heidi Carvin explained, audio on the blog, that this had been changed to a more modern computation---and hence rather than the building space being exhausted in 2012 or so, it was really exhausted NOW. In 2001 there was a group process initiated where there were circles of folks and then in the final analysis, the school team decided.

Overall this worked pretty well, but there was not a critical component of analysis to it-----and right after the new high school had been built, they determined that they needed more space. This was a 30 million dollar bond issue that was at the height of the development of evansville housing. It did not address the primary need that was determined earlier in the first, and defeated bond issue--the primary need was for elementary school space. The reason for the defeat of the first referendum was that the goodwill of the Supr. Benzinger had been lost and nobody trusted him. He proposed an addition to the intermediate school that would have forced removal of the trailer park on Fair Street.

In the subsequent plan presented by Bray Associates, the ultimate strategy was to appeal to the athletic and musical interests and build a new high school with theatre, and new sports gym, weight room etc. and the essential need---the one clearly identified in the population growth estimates was ignored.

The plan for future development as of 2001 was that if there was needed space in the future, the new high school that was geothermal, would have the capacity to add another wing. And that is STILL the plan on paper---although you can hear the resistance from administration on this option. The situation is that the census and Rock County population projection show no additional need for space at the high school for about 10 years, but... a proposal was made to make it a Junior-Senior High---and allow 7-8th graders to move to the added wing---and thus be able to take higher difficulty math and science classes like they do now. Combined with the idea presented by John Mourning at last meeting--that senior high school curriculum will most likely be more diverse and decentralized in ten years, with everyone having a laptop computer and having work study etc and hands on instruction, the day of total obsession with physical facility is OVER.

All of the options listed in the options, mostly talk of "repurpose" of the middle school. This was supposedly a library, community center, senior center, or place for city offices---however, the city and other organizations have never been interested for various reasons in any joint agreement with the school system.

The primary symptom of the planning process in 2001 was to NOT consider all options, and to NOT have pointed dialogue about the issues at hand. The other night, this was still present with a rushed attempt to have folks rank options. REPURPOSING the Middle school if it is really taking over daycare in Evansville and keeping all the huge costs on the taxpayer books will not compute. Outright sale might work. Supr. Carvin mentioned that "if the discussion is divisive maybe we should just reform a new committee in a couple years to reconsider this." My reply would be that the composition of the current ad hoc committee with Union, Evansville, plus builders, teachers, board members is as good as its going to get. Each of the elements of the past will have to be unraveled...and it is going to be painful and the avoidance of pain in the past is the primary reason that there is the current difficulty.

The essential source of all the current problems occured PRIOR to our current Superintendent, and hence EVERYTHING can and must be reviewed in order for the planning process to be effective. Example of this---the 4 period day---Jeff Farnsworth walked right into it and was correct in his questions. The defensive responses we saw at the meeting were inappropriate since the board asked many of the same questions, and it is not correct that this can not be reconsidered in light of Edgerton experience.

Finally--what is needed is a strong facilitator----not weak. All of the questions have to be answered and all the options on the table to have any chance of success. And the expensive options I think will be vetoed by the taxpayer till the economy gets better. However---it might take 5 years to get the proper sequence of planning to be ready to dig---and that would not be digging in a flood plain----