The Community Facilities Advisory Committee (CFAC) met again Feb. 2 to continue its study of facility needs in the district. Principals from each school presented information on how space was utilized in their buildings and whether their school could handle increased enrollments. Committee members then toured the high school library and applied engineering and technology areas that includes woods, graphics, metals and autos.
After seeing the facilities, the consensus of the committee was that the district should address facilities issues in the district. Goals for facilities planning were to:
- recommend the best educational configuration for students;
- create space for future growth at all levels;
- reinforce best practices in how students learn by creating flexible learning spaces for collaboration;
- ensure current programming options for students to meet industry standards; and
- meet community expectations to be high achieving and fiscally sensible.
A list of 13 potential facility configurations was given with the pros and cons of each. That list was narrowed down to the four deemed to be most feasible which included:
- building a new grades 5-6 school – with grade 5 pulled from elementary schools and grade 6 from middle school – and Templeton turned into a grades 7-8 building;
- having two grades 5-8 middle schools by pulling grade 5 out of elementary schools, redesigning Templeton into a grades 5-8 school and building a new grades 5-8 school;
- redesigning the high school applied engineering and technology area, classrooms and district storage plus an addition on the front of the school; and
- redesigning Templeton’s north annex.
CFAC will meet again Feb. 13 to study details of each of the options including cost, programming impact, ability to meet enrollment projections and preliminary design possibilities.