Posted: Oct. 9, 2009 |(0) Comments

Muskego — The two oldest schools in the Muskego-Norway School District, both dating from 1924, should be closed. That was the consensus of the School Board at last week's work session on a proposed facilities plan that has been in the works since last year.

Muskego Elementary School, W17476 Janesville Road, would be closed under all four of the potential options the School Board is considering. Tess Corners Elementary, S6800 Durham Drive, would have stayed open under only one of the options, but the board dropped that option at the work session from further consideration.

The board kept alive two options in which either a new elementary school or a new middle school would be built in the eastern part of the city.

In addition, it kept the option that called for an elementary school roughly twice as large as any the city has now.

The options emerged from a study team of more than 20 residents that was charged with developing a facilities plan that would serve the district well into the future. The team, which met from September 2008 through January 2009, looked at life expectancies of various buildings, demographics and future needs. The team concluded that neither of the 1924 schools would serve the district's long-term needs.

The School Board will narrow the alternatives still more at its Nov. 10 work session. At that time, more details about both options and cost estimates should be available.

The district currently has seven school buildings - four elementary school buildings; Bay Lane that is both a middle school and an elementary school building; Lake Denoon Middle School; and Muskego High School. Under both surviving options, the total would go down to six school buildings. Both Tess Corners and Muskego elementary schools would close and Lakeview and Mill Valley elementary schools would be expanded.

Options narrowed

Under option one that is still being considered, Bay Lane also would be remodeled to become entirely a middle school and a new elementary school would be built on school-owned land on North Cape Road.

Under option three that also has survived, Bay Lane would be remodeled into an elementary school and would serve 800 to 900 students, making it the district's biggest elementary school; and a new middle school would be built on the North Cape Road land.

Unaffected by the facilities options are Lake Denoon Middle School and Muskego High School.

The options are fluid so that pieces can be taken from the proposed plans and used to form a final plan, said Robert Vajgrt, associate project manager with Eppstein Uhen Architects, the firm the district hired to work on the plans.

After the School Board firms up a possible plan, community forums will be held in January and February and a community survey will be conducted. If community support is strong, the plan could go to a referendum as early as November 2010, Superintendent Joseph Schroeder said.

"I feel good about the progress," School Board President James Schaefer said, after two options remained. "This is a long process and the board and community through the facilities study team have taken a thoughtful approach to making sure we are not rushing into anything."

Schroeder said the two schools were selected for closing partly due to their age.

"Long-term, like with an old car, at some point it isn't dependable and you have too many expensive surprises," Schroeder said after the meeting. "Where there is good life in buildings, we want to maximize that," he said referring to Mill Valley and Lakeview.

He already has heard from people saddened that that Muskego Elementary and Tess Corners schools might close.

"People can feel great connections to places," he said. But issues such as additional flexibility in programming and plans for making Janesville Road where Muskego Elementary is located more commercial are factors to be considered, too, he said.

Also, a new building can be built to today's standards, he said. Spaces can be built enabling teachers to have more flexibility offering programming, there could be some enhanced access to technology and safety and security can be built into new buildings, he said.

Large schools often successful

The possibility of Bay Lane serving 800 to 900 elementary students would not hurt achievement Schroeder said.

"You can run very strong elementary schools of that size," he said.

Country Meadows Elementary School Principal Gary Goelz agreed, saying that of the 19 elementary schools in the Racine Unified School District where he had previously worked, the two highest-performing elementary schools were the two biggest. One had more than 700 students and the other more than 600, he said. That performance was probably due to the opportunity teachers had to collaborate on teaching strategies, he said. There were more teachers in each grade, so more ideas flowed, he said.

Another thing to consider with all additions, architect Vajgrt said, is the possibility of losing windows to the outside on the wall where the addition is built. It is possible, however, to have classroom windows opening onto hallways that could be built with skylights to let daylight in, he said. Normally, architects try to build additions where classroom windows are not interfered with, he said.

THE NEXT STEP

WHAT: further narrowing of school building options

WHEN: 6 p.m. Nov. 10

WHERE: Educational Services Center, W18763 Woods Road