Capacity Gain is the Most Important Criterion for Conversion

At its Committee of the Whole meeting today, school board members told staff that capacity gain is the most important criterion when considering which elementary schools to designate to the multi-track year-round calendar for 2007-08.

All board members ranked "How much capacity (space for new students) will be gained through conversion of a school?" as their first or second priority. Board members also agreed that the other 11 criteria are important and need to be considered. The board will continue its discussion of criteria at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20.

Staff briefly discussed several ways the school system may gather community feedback on the criteria, including setting up an area on the WCPSS website for online comments, sending a form for written comments to every school for display in the office or lobby, and convening a focus group to discuss the criteria.

Here are some important dates as the board continues its discussion:

June 20 -- The Board of Education revises and identifies most important criteria to be utilized by the Growth and Planning Department.

June 20-July 18 -- The Growth and Planning Department receives and summarizes community comments regarding the criteria.

July 18 -- Staff reports on community input and the Board of Education adopts a set of criteria for conversion of schools.

July 18-August 14 -- Staff applies the criteria and develops a proposal for consideration by the board.

August 15 -- At the Facilities Committee meeting, staff present a proposal to the Board of Education in which sufficient elementary schools are converted to multi-track calendars to gain 3,000 additional seats for the 2007-08 school year and in which sufficient middle schools are identified to provide appropriate multi-track year-round middle school feeder options for the elementary schools.

August 22 -- The Board of Education discusses, revises, and gives preliminary approval to the selection of schools for conversion.

All of this information will be factored into the 2007-08 Growth Management Plan, which would be presented in late November or early December. The community would have opportunities to provide feedback at public hearings.

Posted by Kristin Flenniken at 05:35 PM on June 13, 2006 | Leave Feedback

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