• ask the Legislature to change the law to add schools to the list of facilities allowed in park land;
• ask the voters of Rapid City to approve the construction;
• redesign the planned renovation to build on the North side of the campus; or
• abandon the expansion altogether and redirect the investment to a new high school.

The Board of Education will meet Wednesday, November 19 at 4:30 p.m. to consider these and perhaps other options. For the moment, the District has asked the architects to stop work on the project until a decision is made. Already the District has invested $400,000 – $500,000 in the current plan. The money came from the District’s capital outlay budget, and not from the general fund which covers salaries and operations. Capital outlay money is used for building construction and repair, equipment and computer purchases as well as durable items like text books and even band uniforms.

Resolution of the land issue is already heating up with Friends of Rapid City Parks who organized several years ago to resist the continued loss of park land to construction projects. If the issue is brought to the voters in Rapid City, they are talking about opposing the measure. But avoiding the voters in Rapid City by going to the Legislature to seek a special change in the law could also be difficult. The Board is likely to consider these issues and more in its discussion.

Kayla Gahagan has tracked this issue since it became public last Friday in a series of stories in the Rapid City Journal:

• Wednesday, 11/18 – Central expansion plot both flood zone and park land
• Monday, 11/16 – Board faces tough choice with Central expansion options
• Saturday, 11/14 – Land oversight could derail Central High Project

The Board meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at the City/School Administration Center at 300 Sixth Street. The public discussion of Central may be delayed, however, as the Board will meet first in Executive Session to consider a student suspension and then hear a presentation from the District’s attorneys on the legal options related to the Central issue.

To read the Rapid City Journal’s editorial on the issue, click here: RCJ editorial.

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.”

Tonight’s decision has been in the works for a number of years. Overcrowding issues and deficiencies in the original facilities at Central have prompted complaints from students, parents, teachers, athletic programs and advocates for the performing arts. In the spring of 2008, the consultants offered four options for alleviating the overcrowding at Central and meeting the long-term needs of high school students in Rapid City. They included:

1. Current enrollment boundaries model – add capacity to Central ($43.7m) so that it can handle 2400 students, address facilities issues at Stevens ($25.8m) but keep current attendance boundaries the same – total price: $69.5 million.
2. Balanced enrollment model – address facilities issues at Central ($28.8m) and Stevens ($37.0m) and redraw boundaries to alleviate overcrowding by sending more students to Stevens – total price: $65.8 million.
3. Third high school model – address facilities issues at Central ($27.0m) and Stevens ($25.8m) without increasing capacity at either school and begin the phased development of a third high school for 1,300 students ($35.3m) – total price: $88.1 million.
4. Tech High School Model – address facilities issues at Central ($27.0m) and Stevens ($25.8m) without increasing capacity at either school and build a new magnet technology high school with a capacity of 500 students ($15.0m) – total price: $67.7 million.

Over the last 15 months the Facilities Committee has focused primarily on Option 1 (2400 students at Central) and a hybrid of Option 4 (creating a phased third high school at Dakota). Preliminary concept drawings for Option 1 were presented to the public last spring. Bids for the work came in at nearly $42 milion. Some board members and their constituents expressed concerns regarding both the price tag and the plan to increase the student population at Central.  The $42 million price tag also became a concern when the Administration distributed its 10-year capital outlay projections showing that the District can only afford about $87 million for new construction over the next ten years given the current spending philosophy of the Board. Spending $42 million on Central would effectively delay all other new construction projects for five years.

The plan provided for the Board’s meeting tonight blends a number of aspects of the consultants’ recommendations. It would cap target enrollment at Central at 1,800 students. To meet this target student population, the District would redraw attendance boundaries to channel a limited number of students to Stevens (mostly Black Hawk students), move forward on planning for the construction of a new middle school in the Valley and transition Dakota from its current function as a middle school to become an alternative third high school for approximately 650 students.

Board to Consider Joining School Funding Lawsuit

Sioux Falls Attorney Scott Abdallah will provide the Board of Education with an update on the status of the school funding lawsuit at tonight’s meeting. Brought by students and parents from several districts, including Rapid City, the suit seeks a court ruling that the Legislature has failed its constitutional duty to provide sufficient for education in South Dakota. Following a trial last fall, Judge Lori Wilbur ruled against the plaintiffs, but the plaintiffs have appealed their case to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

The State sought to block school districts from providing financial support for the case. In July, however, the South Dakota Supreme Court overruled Judge Wilbur’s decision on this particular issue. Abdallah is expected to ask the Board of Education of the Rapid City Area Schools to join with the more than 90 other districts who are supporting the plaintiffs.

The Board meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. at the City/School Administration Center at 300 Sixth Street. A copy of the agenda is here: Board Agenda 9309. Read Kayla Gahagan’s preview of the meeting in today’s Rapid City Journal.

Board President Wes Storm presided over a sometimes tense discussion of the future of Central High School.

At a board of education study session this morning administrators from the Rapid City Area Schools presented an $87 million ten-year facility plan that would reduce the cost of renovating Central High School, budget for the construction of a new middle school in Rapid Valley, allow for the consolidation of alternative high school programs at Dakota and provide for the erection of a new middle school and elementary school on the site of South Middle School. Board members agreed in principle to the administration’s plan, but they were deeply divided over the scope and scale of the Central High School renovation project. Despite these divisions, the board was unanimous in its desire to get started at Central and agreed to bring the proposal to a vote at its next regular meeting scheduled for September 3.

The $87 million plan reflects many of the priorities articulated in the facilities study commissioned by the board in 2007 and delivered in the spring of 2008. That report, prepared by MGT of America, identified $203 million in facilities needs and building improvements in the Rapid City Area Schools based on an analysis of the condition of current buildings, demographic trends and changes in teaching strategies. As consultant Dr. Ed Humble told the board today, “No district gets to fulfill its entire wish list.” The spending plan presented today reflects the administration’s best efforts to balance competing demands for capital dollars and with expected capital tax revenues. In addition, the district plans to spend roughly $50 million dollars during this ten year period on the maintenance and upkeep of existing facilities.

New Middle School in Rapid Valley, Alternative High School at Dakota

The board began the meeting by looking at middle schools. Mike Kenton, director of Support Services, presented an analysis of projected changes in enrollment at the district’s middle schools. He noted that if attendance boundaries are not changed and demographic patterns remain the same, enrollments will continue to grow at Dakota and North Middle Schools over the next six years while enrollments at South, Southwest, and West will decline. These imbalances would lead to inefficient staffing and diminish the quality of education in the overcrowded schools. The administration evaluated MGT’s proposal to consolidate the existing five middle schools into four, but found that the District would not save significant money with the closure of a middle school. Instead, the administration is recommending the construction of a new middle school at the site of Valley View Elementary and redrawing boundaries to diminish the need for busing.

With the construction of a new middle school in Rapid Valley, the administration wants to renovate Dakota and consolidate its various alternative high school programs on the historic downtown campus. With more space, the alternative high school program could accommodate an estimated 645 students at the Dakota campus. Many of these students are either currently enrolled in the academy programs or on the waiting list to enroll.

Central’s Future Divides the Board

The board was mostly deeply divided when it came to a discussion of the proposed renovation of Central High School. Plans presented this spring outlined a $42 million project that would add a new Ninth Grade wing, science classrooms for grades 10-12, new gyms, a weight room, new lockers, a new theater for performing arts and a new main entrance to the school. Advocates for various sports programs and the fine arts have been pushing for these improvements for years. New state requirements for science education make the science classrooms a necessity. Meanwhile, the addition of a new Ninth Grade wing is intended to address a serious problem at Central — the high rate of failure and drop-outs during the first year of high school.

Community reaction to the cost of the Central renovation and the plan to expand the school to accommodate up to 2,400 students has been mixed. The Parent Advisory Committee of Indian Education presented a letter at the board meeting today stating that it did “not believe that expanding Central High School would be in the best interest of our students.” The group noted the already high drop out rate from Central and suggested that a third high school with smaller class sizes and more teacher support would improve student achievement.

Several members of the board have also expressed concerns about the cost of the Central project. They point out that the $42 million price tag will consume nearly half of the roughly $87 million the district can afford to spend on new building projects over the next ten years and could jeopardize or postpone the construction of the middle school in the Valley, the renovation of Dakota or the construction of new facilities to replace the aging and inefficient buildings at South Middle School and Robbinsdale Elementary. They asked the district’s design team to present another option for Central that was more tightly focused on academic needs with a budget closer to $28 million. 

The $28 million option presented by the administration today reduces the size of the Ninth Grade wing from 23 classrooms to 18. It reduces the new Science Wing from ten classroom/labs to eight. The big savings, however, come from reducing the planned expenditures for sports and fine arts. A planned competition gym would be replaced by a practice gym. The size of the new weight room would be reduced by 23 percent. New lockers would be reduced from 1100 to 900. Most important in terms of the overall cost of the project, $6.6 million would be saved by remodeling the existing performing arts theater and adding rehearsal space rather than constructing a new theater.

As the end of the meeting approached, Board President Wes Storm tried to identify areas of agreement and find room for compromise. There seemed to be some consensus around the idea that compromise could be reached on the size of the Ninth Grade wing, the number of new science classrooms, and the number of new practice gyms. The board agreed that a final discussion on the plan to add a new theater could be postponed until later this fall. In the meantime, Storm asked the administration to provide a recommendation to the board based on the study session conversation for a vote at the board’s upcoming September 3 meeting. Administrators are hopeful that the vote will provide a greenlight for final design, construction bids and groundbreaking at Central later this fall.

For more details on the study session, read Kayla Gahagan’s story in the Rapid City Journal.

The conversation tomorrow has been billed as a “Ten Year Comprehensive Facilities Plan Discussion.” More than a year after releasing a consultant’s report describing the condition and suitability of all of the district’s schools, the district has yet to release a timetable or a spending plan for the projects delineated in the report. According to board members and administrators, Business Manager Dave Janak will present an analysis of the district’s capital financing capability at the meeting tomorrow. With an overview of what the district can afford, the board can begin to establish some priorities.

In the meantime, despite the lack of a five- or ten-year budget, the district has moved forward with plans to renovate Central High School for an estimated $42 million. Many community members have expressed concerns about the price of the renovation, particularly if it leads to an even larger student population at Central. Advocates for a third high school would like to see a more modest plan for renovation coupled with a strategy for reducing the overall population at the district’s two main high schools. Some board members are likely to press for reducing the scope of the project at tomorrow’s meeting.

The board is also scheduled to discuss its goals and priorities for the 2009 – 2010 academic year. For the past several years, the board’s main goals have been tied to student achievement as measured by scores on the Dakota STEP test. Year after year, however, the district has failed to achieve the board’s goals, leaving some to wonder how meaningful the goal-setting process really is. In fact, it appears that the District’s goal setting has simply become a process for internalizing the State Department of Education’s expectations under No Child Left Behind. Many parents and community members may wonder whether there ought to be goals that reflect the concerns of the community as well.

The community is welcome to attend the board study session in the Multi-Purpose Room at General Beadle Elementary (10 Van Buren Street) from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. The agenda is available here: 08-22-09 Special Meeting agenda.

The numbers given to the Building Committee are preliminary, however, and represent conservative estimates based on undertaking all of the changes envisioned in the current architectural plans. Some board members have expressed a desire to see the project slimmed down and have requested budget estimates for alternative approaches to the renovation and for the construction of a 1400-student third high school. Last summer, the Rapid City Journal reported that District officials asserted that the construction of a third high school could cost between $67.7 and $88.1 million.

The Board will hold a special study session to consider the Central renovation project and the issue of high school facilities sometime later this summer. A date for the open study session will be set at the Board’s Annual Meeting scheduled for July 16 at 5:30 p.m. At that meeting, Area 1 representative Arnie Laubach will complete his term. Newly elected member Suzan Nolan will be sworn in to take Laubach’s seat on the Board. Nolan has expressed concern that the public has not had adequate opportunity to comment on the proposed renovation at Central and the relative merits of the various parts of the project.

…Over the recent 6 months or so, the full board has met on at least two occasions at Central for a public advertised study sessions as well as the Facility Committee has been meeting once a month specifically on this topic. The staff and building administration meetings in recent months with the design team has been for the design teams purpose of gathering the necessary data to develop the design concept that was unveiled last week. These were merely interviews and not meetings. The next stage of this design process will incorporate more input from parents, students, staff, and administration as specific details are incorporated into the design. You, of course, will be welcome in participating in this part of the process as well.

Kinniburgh’s comments raise a number of issues for all of us, including board members, administrators, journalists and members of the public. Most important, has the public really had the opportunity to learn about and understand the recommendations in this report? 

Let’s start by looking at what the Rapid City Journal has done. When the study was first released in June, 2008 the paper provided some background prior to the unveiling at a meeting of the Board of Education. The day after the meeting, the paper highlighted key elements of the report  noting that the 10-year plan called for closing some elementary schools and one middle school, renovating other schools, changing boundaries and building new schools. The total ten-year budget was expected to be about $200 million.

There was no follow up by the Rapid City Journal and no public action by the District until August 14 when the paper informed the public that the Board “may decide whether to officially adopt the recommendations for the coming decade.” This article noted the price tag for Central, plans to close Dakota Middle School and Canyon Lake Elementary School, and consolidate students from Horace Mann and Wilson into a new school. Significantly, Superintendent Peter Wharton was quoted saying:

“We need to instigate a process where the community is not fearful of the changes. It’s not just us that needs to be ready, it’s the community.” – Superintendent Peter Wharton

The article noted that the Board had had a study session two weeks earlier to discuss the report, but apparently the Journal didn’t cover the study session. When the Board offered its “silent consent” to the plan on August 14, no one from the public offered a comment or asked a question.

Eleven days later, the Rapid City Journal editorial board acknowledged the District’s ambitious plan and expressed some skepticism. The editorial closed by urging the public to get involved.

“The last thing you should see a year or two down the road is change and not  have realized it was coming.”

The Board’s silent consent sparked concerns among some students and parents in Rapid City. Barbara Soderlin reported in the Rapid City Journal on September 8 that the plan to close Dakota Middle School “has some families worried.” The article reported that the District would create a committee, “which will include middle school and elementary school principals, staff and parents,” to study the consultants’ recommendations this year to decide if they make sense for the community.” In a recent conversation, however, Superintendent Wharton explained that no district-wide committee has or will be created. “Our point back in September is that as we begin to address specific elements of the plan, we will create local committees at the buildings that are specifically impacted by some of these recommendations.”

Board acceptance of the MGT report also accelerated efforts to begin planning the renovation of Central. In the fall, the Rapid City Journal offered a number of articles focusing on the overcrowding at Central. Freshman transfers approved by the administration and the Board were putting a an even greater strain on the facility, Kayla Gahagan reported. On October 7, Gahagan offered a long and insightful story detailing the effects of this overcrowding. Meanwhile, a separate story on the same day quoted Central High School Principal Mike Talley saying that Central had been putting Band-Aids on its facilities for too long. This article summarized the conversation at a second Board study session in which the Board focused on Central High School. Once again the idea of building a third high school was discussed. According to the article, the District could build a new full-service high school for $88.1 million or renovate Central and Stevens and develop a smaller, technology focused third high school for $67.7 million. 

From October to April, the Journal was generally silent on the facilities plan and the proposed renovation of Central High School. As Gahagan reports in her blog post the District was apparently holding a number of meetings that involved staff, parents and consultants, but she wasn’t invited according to one administrator who was ”just following orders.” Gahagan asked whether the public should have known about these meetings and been included in the conversation. These are legitimate and important questions.

Everyone could be doing more to help the public understand this 10-year, $200 million plan. Has the Journal done enough to get inside the MGT study and help the public understand its priorities, price tags and possibilities? Should the District be doing more than moving this process along with small committees that meet without public notice and board study sessions that are poorly attended? Finally, what can other constituencies, including PTAs, the Chamber, and service organizations who care about the future of education in this community do to engage the public with the plan? 

It’s not too late for all of us to step up to a more informed public dialogue, but everyone involved needs to shoulder some responsibility. If we don’t, as the Rapid City Journal’s editorial board warned, we will see changes we never knew were coming.

Note:  The Board of Education plans to hold a study session at CSAC on the afternoon or evening of April 30 to consider school area boundary changes and other recommendations in the MGT report. The public is encouraged to attend this meeting. Check with the District for details.

The design concept for the renovation presented by Hermanson-Egge Engineering and Neuman, Monson, Wictor Architects calls for the addition of a new two-story 9th grade wing that would create a school within a school. A new science lab addition would be added to provide nine much needed classrooms to accommodate the state’s new curriculum standards. A new 700-seat theater would at last give the school’s outstanding drama and musical performance groups a venue that could accommodate their growing audiences. New gym, locker room and training facilities would finally provide Central with the competition space it has never had because the original plans for the school envisioned that the Civic Center would be used for major games. 

According to consultant Larry Hermanson, despite all this new construction, Central High School will have 150 more parking spaces when the renovation is complete because the City and the School District plan to make significant changes in the traffic pattern to open up new space for parking.

The design concepts offered tonight also call for a much improved main entrance to Central through a plaza enclosed on three sides by the two-story structure. Administrative offices would move to this main entrance area to offer improved security for students and staff.

Steve Malone, a long-time advocate for the renovation at Central, urged the board to move forward with the project as a total package and in a timely way.  ”The excitement is there at Central,” he said.

Principal Mike Talley told the board that staff at Central have worked closely with the designers. He affirmed that large high schools can be successful “if they are designed to incorporate smaller learning communities.”

The board and the administration did not discuss a specific timeline for the project, and no one offered a possible price tag. With the board’s approval tonight, the administration will engage the full design team to begin design development and more specific plans that will lead to detailed cost estimates.

Funding for the renovation will come from the District’s capital outlay account. These tax monies are specifically collected to pay for facilities and other durable assets and cannot be used to pay for ongoing operations. Despite the shortfall in the district’s general fund over the last few years, the capital outlay fund is still healthy.