MPSD moves ahead with proposed consolidation of elementary campuses

Mar. 11—Due to aging buildings and declining enrollment, the Meridian Public School District plans to present to the Board of Trustees later this month a proposal to downsize to five elementary schools, which includes closing Oakland Heights Elementary School, according to Meridian Superintendent Dr. Amy Carter.

"Aging facilities, people moving, declining enrollment — we are operating way too many buildings for the number of children we educate," Carter told a small gathering of district employees and local residents who turned out Thursday for a community meeting to discuss proposed changes to the city's elementary schools. The district also has held in-person and Zoom meetings with parents and community members most affected by the proposals.

The average age of MPSD's school buildings is between 60 and 70 years old with the district's newest building constructed in 2008, Carter said.

Compounding that, enrollment in city schools has declined just like it has across the state.

Years ago, MPSD educated around 6,000 students and as high as 10,000, Carter said. Today, enrollment is below 5,000.

"At this point with our enrollment being slightly below 5,000, we have to say 'do you put a little bit of money in all of those (buildings) and try to operate efficiently or do you put money in a few of those and operate more effectively for our children,'" she said.

As the district began looking at allocating funds from last year's $34 million bond issue, it began reviewing the number and condition of its facilities and the estimated cost it would take to upgrade each campus.

"We are all responsible for making sure that every dollar you give for public education that we spend it wisely," Carter told those in attendance. "When we ran the numbers last year to see how expensive it would be if we had to update all of our facilities, we kind of got an estimated total of around $96-$98 million to update all of our schools. I don't know about you, but our school district does not have that kind of money."

Barring any unforeseen occurrence, the proposed changes will be presented to the school board at its monthly meeting on March 21. If approved, Oakland Heights will close next school year and its roughly 340 students moved to the former Carver Middle School campus.

The district's Board of Trustees voted to close Carver last summer as it consolidated the middle school campuses, a move that drew a lot of criticism from the community at the time.

Carter said opening Carver as a new elementary school for kindergarten through fifth grades is ideal for the district. It is a bigger facility. It has newer buildings. It also has an indoor gym for P.E. classes on rainy days, unlike Oakland Heights.

"If you don't have any history about Oakland Heights, guys what we've been experiencing in that building is excessive flooding," Carter said. "When we have heavy rain, there are pools of water that come into our halls, our cafeteria. Our babies are moving through it. Our administrators, our custodial staff, they do a great job of trying to manage it, but why would we keep children in a building like that when we have Carver that's available."

In addition, Oakland Heights is the elementary school that probably loses the most instructional time during the school year from being on lockdowns due to non-school related incidents in the surrounding neighborhoods, Carter said.

Closing Carver, which can house more than 700 students, was never about safety, but the difficulty the district was having in trying to staff three middle school campuses in the midst of a teacher and substitute teacher shortage, Carter said.

"Last year we were educating 900 children across three campuses that were designed to educate 2,700 children," she said. "Now we are operating two middle schools, and things are going extremely well in those two middle schools."

Also under the district's proposal, the roughly 350 kindergarten through fifth grade students at T.J. Harris Upper and Lower elementary schools will be relocated to the new Carver Elementary and Crestwood Elementary School depending on the rezoning of the elementary districts.

"Crestwood only educates 250 children in a building that was designed to educate 450 children," Carter said.

Once the Oakland Heights and T.J. Harris students are re-assigned, Crestwood would have about 390 students and Carver anywhere from 480 to 540, she said.

The district's central offices would then relocate to the T.J. Harris Upper campus from their current downtown location on 25th Avenue. The T.J. Harris Lower campus will be turned into a Little Wildcat Academy for all Pre-K students districtwide.

"T.J. Upper wouldn't sit vacant because we know the significance of Harris to our community. It would now become the administrative complex," Carter said. "We already have a portion of the central offices there now."

Through its Pre-K program, the district currently educates about 200 4-year-olds. Having all of those students, plus being able to bring in 3-year-olds, would be an exciting opportunity, the superintendent said.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed between 42% and 44% of students registering for kindergarten in city schools had not attended a Pre-K program, Carter said.

"It is so important we get our students as early as we can to start educating them as soon as we can," she said.

MPSD Board President Sally Gray agreed.

"That is a dream to make 3-year-old classrooms available to our community," she said. "To give the parents the option to send 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds to Pre-K would be amazing."

No changes are being proposed for Parkview, Poplar Springs and West Hills elementary schools except the moving of their Pre-K students to the Little Wildcat Academy. Parkview currently enrolls around 415 students, while Poplar Springs has approximately 420 students. West Hills is currently the largest elementary campus and is nearing its capacity with just under 480 students.

Carter also said there are no consolidation changes planned for the middle school and high school campuses.

The district has purchased 10 new buses with district funds and is considering a revision to its policy that requires students who live within a mile of the school to walk or be transported to campus by a car.

"We want to make sure at the new Carver Elementary, that I don't have any 5-year-olds running across 45th Avenue or across 8th Street," Carter said. "We are going to make sure there are plenty of bus stops close enough so that little ones can get on the bus and get to school safely. There will be more buses running that will be able to pick up more children."

"It is a goal of mine, at some point, that every child in this city will be on a bus on in a car and not walking to school," she said.

Carter said faculty and staff at the schools affected by the proposed changes will be re-assigned to new campuses with no layoffs expected. Student-teacher ratio and class size also will not be affected.

Once pre-registration is completed, parents hopefully will be notified of their child's school assignments for next school year in early April, Carter said.