Board hears Roosevelt options
Iowa City School District officials are another step closer to deciding the fate of Roosevelt Elementary.
The district’s Facilities Advisory Committee gave recommendations to the School Board on Tuesday night after meeting several times in the past six weeks.
“We had a very diverse group of people who brought a lot of different and unique viewpoints,” said Steve Buckman, the senior member of the committee.
The committee was instructed to provide information and make suggestions to the board about nine options — some of which would close Roosevelt and build a new elementary school at the Crossings, a residential development near West High. The options are intended to solve the building’s maintenance needs and overcrowding issue.
Other schools that would be affected by the potential move — which would require a change in enrollment boundaries — are Horn, Kirkwood, and Weber.
Committee members toured each school and met with administration officials and faculty members. At the meeting, members broke into three small groups, which put together pros and cons for each option as well as highlighting their priorities for the schools.
Each member was also required to make a “forced choice” about which option they would recommend by a process of elimination.
“We felt that was what we needed to do,” Buckman said. “We were able to put together a composite average from everyone’s choices.”
Some other community members voiced new concerns to the board.
UI Assistant Professor Charles Stanier spoke on behalf of We Love Our Neighborhood Schools — a group of parents and community members dedicated to preserving neighborhood schools. Stanier gave the board results of a survey given throughout the district that received 530 responses.
The survey presented participants with several of the board’s options. The highest-ranked option was delaying a new school and adding on to other schools to fix an overcrowding problem, Stanier said.
Lori Enloe asked the board to consider separating their options for Roosevelt. Her idea is to begin constructing a new school at the Crossings but keeping Roosevelt while the board continues weighing its options.
“We recognize with the growth in the district we are going to need another school anyway,” she said. “Would there be a benefit to start building the new school and then step back to look at the issues surrounding Roosevelt and see if we really want to keep it?”
Board President Toni Cilek said the board was not prepared to deliberate details on the options Tuesday night.
“We have the information and feedback that we need, but we need to get into the options before we can logically respond,” she said.
The board plans to have a work session on the topic and could potentially vote on an option at its May 26 meeting.
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