Central High Renovations Approved by Board

By a 6-1 vote, the Board of Education approved the Administration’s recommendation to begin renovations at Central High School that will add 19 classrooms for a Ninth Grade Pod, 6 classrooms for a new Science Wing and upgrade existing athletic facilities to incorporate two new basketball courts, a weight room, a wrestling room and storage facilities. When the project goes out to bid, the District will include options to add additional classrooms. The Board agreed to revisit a possible “Phase Two” renovation program that could include funding for a new fine arts theater.

The vote represented broad agreement among board members and community representatives that work on Central, the top priority in the 2008 MGT Consulting report, needs to move forward. But it did not resolve the issue of how big Central should become in terms of physical space and student population. Board members Doug Kinniburgh and Sheryl Kirkeby expressed concern that the Phase One plan does not fully address the District’s need for space for high school students. “We are over capacity now at Stevens, as well as Central,” Kinniburgh told the Board.

Board member Suzan Nolan said she believes the solution to the District’s high school capacity problems is not to make Central larger. “To draw down the numbers at Central,” she said, ” we need to create a technical and career high school for students from Jefferson and Lincoln at Dakota.”

Leah Lutheran was the sole board member to vote against the proposal. “I still have heartburn with the idea of decreasing the size of the high school,” she said. Reflecting on the proposal to turn Dakota Middle School into an alternative third high school, she said: “I want us to go forward, but is Dakota a suitable facility?”

Dan Lewis and Steve Malone, long-time advocates of the renovation, were disappointed that the Administration’s recommendation did not include plans to build three, rather than two, new gyms. They had hoped to give Central a total of five practice gyms. Board President Wes Storm pointed out that no high school or college in South Dakota had more than four gyms. Malone and Lewis asked the Board to include the third new gym as an option in the bid documents so that the Board and the community could know what it would cost. “If we know the price,”  Malone said, “maybe we can get some people from the community to put some money in.”

Bruce Knowles, the orchestra teacher at Central, urged the Board to continue to look at plans to add performance, rehearsal and storage space for the fine arts at Central. “Even if you cap Central’s enrollment at 1800,” he said, “we would still have inadequate lighting for rehearsal and instruction. We would still need space for storage, and we would still have a security issue in the event of a lockdown.”

The Board has agreed to discuss the idea of building a new theater and adding rehearsal space and storage facilities at Central as part of a Phase Two renovation program. Estimates for this project range from $7-10 million dollars depending on the final specifications for the project.

The challenge for the Board, as Business Manager Dave Janak explained, is that the District’s budget for new facilities is limited to about $87 million over the next ten years.  ”If you want to build a $47 million high school at Central, you can,” he said, “but you will shortchange something else down the line.”