Post by doctorwho on May 4, 2011 10:04:44 GMT -6
District halts planning for third Oswego high school
By Jenette Sturges jsturges@stmedianetwork.com Apr 27, 2011 04:53PM
OSWEGO — Work on Oswego’s third high school has been stopped, and the new School Board has sent everybody back to the drawing board.
In two weeks, the Oswego School Board, including new members Bill Walsh, Brent Lightfoot and Alison Swanson, will be asked to decide whether the district should reverse course and nix plans already under way for the third high school — and they’ll have to do it on a pretty tight schedule.
“The bonding authority for the $450 million bond issue issued in 2006 runs out in the first part of November 2011. That’s this fall,” said School Superintendent Dan O’Donnell, in a workshop Monday night on projected overcrowding in Oswego schools.
“The board should have an action or direction by May 9, for instance if we’re going to do something other than build the third high school where we already have architects working. If we’re not going to do that, you need to tell us what we are going to do so we can get architects working on that,” he said.
But that two-week deadline will be a tough one to meet — the board sent architects, consulting firms and the district administration back to run the numbers a second time, investigating the cost of additions to Oswego and Oswego East high schools and to update enrollment projections with 2010 census data.
School administrators and DLR Group, the architectural firm contracted for the third high school, will work to decide how large possible additions would have to be and the cost of drawing up blueprints for the schools’ expansion. That process itself could take as long as a month.
Meanwhile, RSP, the educational consulting firm the district hired to predict enrollment over the next five years, will take another look at enrollment projections including the latest census data and the effect the economic downturn has had on building.
But at Monday night’s workshop, representatives for the firm said they were confident that, even if housing doesn’t recover within the Oswego School District boundaries anytime soon, enrollment in the district would still increase significantly.
“In the short term there’s going to be significantly less residential development. But families with small children, they’re here now,” said Robert Schwarz, planner with RSP.
Schwarz pointed to an avalanche of data, including the firm’s accuracy in predicting this year’s enrollment, and the large number of children under 4 years old in the district who would be headed through Oswego schools over the next decade.
RSP’s enrollment projections indicated the district would have 19,000 students by 2014, and numbers are expected to swell in the high schools even sooner — 1,180 incoming freshmen will replace 850 graduating seniors in the district this summer.
Both Oswego and Oswego East high schools were built with a maximum capacity of 2,400 pupils, a figure both will approach next year. The third school would also serve 2,400 students, up to 3,000 with additions, whereas additions to the district’s two existing schools would make room for only another 1,600 students.
While board members discussed aiming for capacities of 3,000 to 3,200 at both Oswego High and Oswego East, O’Donnell defended the schools’ current size.
“I think about it in academic terms; I don’t think it ought to be more than 2,400,” he said.
But board members said they wanted all options back on the table.
“I want to open that discussion back up and I want to have it with all the information,” said Swanson. “How much are the additions going to cost? How much to open a freshmen center on one of those properties? I want options. I don’t want just ‘We’re going to build a third high school and that how it’s going to be.’”
Meanwhile, work on the third high school, including assembling bids for construction and further architectural work, has been halted in anticipation of a decision.
Walsh, Lightfoot and Swanson each said during election season that they would not support construction of a third high school, which was approved by the previous board in October.
This week, they joined Lynn Cullick, Mike Scaramuzzi and Laurie Pasteris, all incumbents who voted against the third high school, and David Behrens, who voted for it.
The board is expected to give the district’s administrators a decision on whether to proceed with the land purchase and construction for the third high school on May 9.
By Jenette Sturges jsturges@stmedianetwork.com Apr 27, 2011 04:53PM
OSWEGO — Work on Oswego’s third high school has been stopped, and the new School Board has sent everybody back to the drawing board.
In two weeks, the Oswego School Board, including new members Bill Walsh, Brent Lightfoot and Alison Swanson, will be asked to decide whether the district should reverse course and nix plans already under way for the third high school — and they’ll have to do it on a pretty tight schedule.
“The bonding authority for the $450 million bond issue issued in 2006 runs out in the first part of November 2011. That’s this fall,” said School Superintendent Dan O’Donnell, in a workshop Monday night on projected overcrowding in Oswego schools.
“The board should have an action or direction by May 9, for instance if we’re going to do something other than build the third high school where we already have architects working. If we’re not going to do that, you need to tell us what we are going to do so we can get architects working on that,” he said.
But that two-week deadline will be a tough one to meet — the board sent architects, consulting firms and the district administration back to run the numbers a second time, investigating the cost of additions to Oswego and Oswego East high schools and to update enrollment projections with 2010 census data.
School administrators and DLR Group, the architectural firm contracted for the third high school, will work to decide how large possible additions would have to be and the cost of drawing up blueprints for the schools’ expansion. That process itself could take as long as a month.
Meanwhile, RSP, the educational consulting firm the district hired to predict enrollment over the next five years, will take another look at enrollment projections including the latest census data and the effect the economic downturn has had on building.
But at Monday night’s workshop, representatives for the firm said they were confident that, even if housing doesn’t recover within the Oswego School District boundaries anytime soon, enrollment in the district would still increase significantly.
“In the short term there’s going to be significantly less residential development. But families with small children, they’re here now,” said Robert Schwarz, planner with RSP.
Schwarz pointed to an avalanche of data, including the firm’s accuracy in predicting this year’s enrollment, and the large number of children under 4 years old in the district who would be headed through Oswego schools over the next decade.
RSP’s enrollment projections indicated the district would have 19,000 students by 2014, and numbers are expected to swell in the high schools even sooner — 1,180 incoming freshmen will replace 850 graduating seniors in the district this summer.
Both Oswego and Oswego East high schools were built with a maximum capacity of 2,400 pupils, a figure both will approach next year. The third school would also serve 2,400 students, up to 3,000 with additions, whereas additions to the district’s two existing schools would make room for only another 1,600 students.
While board members discussed aiming for capacities of 3,000 to 3,200 at both Oswego High and Oswego East, O’Donnell defended the schools’ current size.
“I think about it in academic terms; I don’t think it ought to be more than 2,400,” he said.
But board members said they wanted all options back on the table.
“I want to open that discussion back up and I want to have it with all the information,” said Swanson. “How much are the additions going to cost? How much to open a freshmen center on one of those properties? I want options. I don’t want just ‘We’re going to build a third high school and that how it’s going to be.’”
Meanwhile, work on the third high school, including assembling bids for construction and further architectural work, has been halted in anticipation of a decision.
Walsh, Lightfoot and Swanson each said during election season that they would not support construction of a third high school, which was approved by the previous board in October.
This week, they joined Lynn Cullick, Mike Scaramuzzi and Laurie Pasteris, all incumbents who voted against the third high school, and David Behrens, who voted for it.
The board is expected to give the district’s administrators a decision on whether to proceed with the land purchase and construction for the third high school on May 9.
