Central High School/Photo by Brent Martin
By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph School District officials are taking a long look at aging school buildings and asking for the public’s input.
One survey elicited more than 1,900 responses. Others are planned.
St. Joseph School Superintendent Doug Van Zyl says he understands increasing transparency and proving fiscal responsibility continues to top concerns of residents.
“I think with everything that has gone on in the past, that’s probably understandable and reasonable,” Van Zyl tells St. Joseph Post.
Van Zyl believes the district took a step forward with the passage of the 61-cent levy increase in April.
Still, he understands mismanagement by previous school administrations remains a factor.
“The only thing that I would hope people understand is we can’t necessarily stay hooked to the past, anchored to the past, that we need to continue to look forward,” according to Van Zyl.
The St. Joseph School District has 32 buildings with an average age of 62.4 years, serving more than 11,000 students.
Van Zyl understands St. Joseph residents are very proud of the old, historic buildings, especially the three high schools: Benton, Central, and Lafayette.
He isn’t sure whether the district can afford to properly renovate them.
“I’d love to be able to say that it is cost-effective to continue to remodel or renovate existing facilities. Most of the time, it’s not,” says Van Zyl.
Van Zyl say the public seems split on whether it would be best to modernize existing, historic buildings or to replace them with new buildings.
“That’s the two camps that I see people falling into. I think people realize something needs to be different. We just now need to come up with what that plan is going to look like and how can it be supported.”
The district architectural firm, DLR Group, is guiding the school board on taking the public pulse and considering the best way forward.
Of the 1,928 residents who responded to the initial survey, 60% said they didn’t believe the current facilities will not support the future educational needs of St. Joseph students. Nearly 70% stated facilities need to be updated. The vast majority, nearly 90%, acknowledged learning needs to be different today than they were when most of the facilities were built.
Priorities expressed by respondents include reducing class sizes as well as increasing teacher salaries and retaining more of the district’s teachers.
Trust and transparency were major themes sounded by respondents, according to DLR, which reports respondents mentioned that due to the transgressions of previous administrations and the relatively new tenure of the current administration, trust has yet to be fully reestablished.
The district calls the process the Master Facilities Planning process and says it will continue through the summer.
Here is the website for the Master Facilities Planning process by the St. Joseph School District: https://www.sjsdfacilities.org/
Bode Middle School/Photo by Brent Martin