At a community forum November 4th, the Administration presented a slideshow justifying a proposed realignment so that all students graduating Richboro Middle School (RMS) would attend Council Rock High School South. Currently, some students from RMS attend South and others attend North, depending on the address of residence.
The Superintendent claimed the capacity for South was 2,380 students. However, when the building was planned, all the official documents showed it was being built with a capacity for 2,000 (it had originally been designed for 1,600 but actions by the School Board increased that by 400 for a total of 2,000). The documents includes minutes of School Board meetings on January 27, 2000, and June 15, 2000, as well as Act 34 documentation for the school project.
Now, there was a provision written into the Act 34 documents that South was expandable to 2,400 students, but the approved capacity was 2,000. The expansion up to 2,400 was not part of the construction then, nor done since that time. Taxpayers should be concerned that this move of more students into the building could encourage people to push for added facilities to be built to accommodate them.
If the official documents approved for the construction showed a capacity of 2,000, how could there all of a sudden be room for 2,380 students as was being claimed in the presentation? The District cannot play both sides of the coin — using one figure for official approval but an altogether different number when it suits its needs.
The statement was made that this figure of 2,380 capacity was determined by assigning 25 students into each instructional space. What’s humorous (or questionable) about that is that at a meeting just the following night about high school scheduling, planners discussed space limitations. They spoke of the need to keep an eye on how many students could fit into a room, since not all classes could take a full complement of kids, sometimes for facilities reasons. So a flat 25 students per instructional space might sound good and easy but not mesh with reality.
The plan for RMS students to all come to South did not mention any need to build facilities to accommodate the added students, but that doesn’t mean this wouldn’t somehow get pursued. You can bet it would become a demand if the addition of those students led to the reality (or even perception) that the building was overcrowded.
The Superintendent was asked whether any new facilities were to be constructed at South should this redistricting happen, including a swimming pool (which North has but South does not); his response was simply that students at South would not be taught swimming.
The slideshow contained projected numbers of students in future years, including some minimal growth pattern (37 students to grade 9). In the year 2014-15, these figures showed that South might have 2,219 students. Well, by the official number of 2,000, that would be overcrowding.
That raised two concerns from some attendees, some of whom have been involved in District activity for many years. First were the vagaries of projecting future enrollment, and one audience member indicated that based on looking at projections using 3rd grade student increases would result in more students than the Administration was showing. A difference of 5% could push Council Rock South up against even the 2,380 capacity figure that was being claimed to justify this move.
But the other bone of contention was this discrepancy between what was shown as the capacity and what was being claimed. The Superintendent even stated at one point that ““I don’t know if that’s right, 2,000, 2,380 as far as capacity.” Well, forgive me, but as a taxpayer, I think Government agencies are bound by the documents and records they create.
If the school was built as planned for capacity, that figure is 2,000. If it was somehow built larger and can really accommodate 2,380, then the District should answer why money was spent to build a larger school than had been approved at the time (presumably costing more).
But since the official documents state the capacity is 2,000, any plans to house upwards of 2,200 students in this building must be considered overcrowding unless and until the School District can justify this discrepancy with certainty. I think the public should be concerned that this overcrowding (to accommodate this RMS redistricting) could become the foot in the door that will lead to an expensive expansion of facilities at South.
Filed under: Administration, Budget, Council Rock, Ethics, Facilities, Information, Law, Meetings, Redistricting, School Board, Students, Taxes | Tagged: Administration, Budget, Ethics, Facilities, Law, Meetings, Minutes, Redistricting, School Board, Students, Taxes
Funny how official numbers are called into play. I was at that meeting and when Mr. Klein showed his numbers which are based on the current poopulation several women argued with him that their numbers differ from his. Where exactly do they get their numbers? Did they go into every school and count each student? How can you possibly argue that your numbers are more correct than the superintendent? Also this article fails to mention that if RMS continued to split the numbers at the two high schools would flip-flop. So I guess over crowding North is okay because that’s what you want.
Thanks for your comments and being part of the cconversation.
The official numbers for capacity at South are based on the documents submitted at the time the building was planned and built. An example is the Act 34 document which is a legal requirement for any construction project for the schools. If a capacity of 2000 was what the School District claimed in the year 2000 and there hasn’t been an expansion since then, then that should be current capacity (unless the District somehow built a bigger school than officially planned, leading one to question how much more it cost than needed). Those were the numbers cited by the women who contended that Mr. Klein’s figures were different that what the official capacity numbers are.
As far as the numbers at North and South flip-flopping if the RMS split continues, it’s true that North ends up with more students than South, but the capacity at North is larger than South, so a larger number there wouldn’t be overcrowding.
I’m sorry I guess I should have made myself more clear when referring to numbers. I ‘m talking about the enrollment numbers. At no point in Mr. Klein’s scenario do the numbers at South get close to 2300. The biggest year would be 2014/2015 when the number reaches 2219. While I know it can be argued that more students would move into the district his numbers already allow 37 per year based on what has been the trend. I find it hard to believe that all of a sudden there would be a huge growth in only the South sending areas. Right now I believe there are about 2100 students currently in South and there is no concern that the school is overcrowded. As far as North being larger than South are you referring to instructional space or square footage of the school? As far as not having more than 25 students per class all I can say is ridiculous. This was a big part of the argument at the meeting as well. It was brought up about studies showing kids learn better in a smaller class size. I will agree with that at the elementary level. If at the high school level your child can not walk into a class of 30 students sit down, pay attention and learn the same as if there were 5 less kids in the class then you have bigger problems then which school your child should be in. Lets be fair here at this meeting and all the previous meetings it was never about numbers. It has always been about people feeling North is a better school than South. I think that point was made very clear when a large, opinionated group of women were asked flat out would you be okay with keeping the kids together as long as they went to North and they in unison responded yes.
The point I have been making about official numbers as shown in official documents has a lot in common with other issues that have been raised in this blog.
It has to do with the degree of trust the public can have in what is going on at Council Rock. Official documents should contain the data upon which decisions are made. There have been too many instances where things seem to get made up on the fly. Instances where different numbers get pulled out of a hat to try and justify some decision that the original numbers did not warrant.
Council Rock School Board is a government body and needs to act accountable for the accuracy of data.
So when District officials throw out projections that don’t match what is shown on official documents, I think it is proper for the public to challenge them. If the figures aren’t reliable, how can the public be certain the decisions relying on some new unofficial figures are going to work out correctly?
Okay I understand about making a point about the official numbers. So what are the official numbers for North? What does it say that buildings capacity is? I may be wrong but wasn’t there a conversation at the meeting about rennovations being done at North which has made the instructional space smaller?