WHOLE-GRADE ARRANGEMENT WOULD CLOSE RIPPEY
School board members and advisory committees from East Greene and Jefferson-Scranton got their first look at the recommendations for future sharing from Educational Consulting Services (ECS) on Wednesday night, April 20, at a joint meeting held in the commons of Jefferson-Scranton elementary school in Jefferson.
The meeting—the first to introduce findings by ECS—drew about 80 residents from the two districts.
ECS recommends East Greene and Jefferson-Scranton move forward on a two-way whole grade sharing arrangement that would send all 7 through 12th grade students from East Greene to Jefferson-Scranton and all Jefferson-Scranton 5th and 6th grade students to the East Greene school building in Grand Junction, which is currently the middle and high school facility serving East Greene students in grades 6-12.
ECS further recommends that the Grand Junction building house the EG district’s kindergarten through fourth grade students and that the Rippey building be “phased out.” Rippey currently houses EG grades K-5.
Jefferson-Scranton students in grades K-4 would continue to attend classes in the J-S elementary building on East Russell Street.
In making the presentation, Jerry McCall, the ECS consultant who prepared the report, outlined the demographic changes in Greene County, noting that the population has decreased from 15,455 in 1950 to 9,336 in 2010. “That’s a decline of 6,000 people,” he pointed out.
The population shift in the area has been significant. In the East Greene district the population change from 2000 to 2010 was: Grand Junction, 964 to 824, a 14.5% decrease; Rippey, 319 to 292, an 8.5% decrease; and Dana, 84 to 71, a 15.5% decrease.
McCall said that of the county’s 9,336 residents, the break down from those living in the towns is 6,711 with 2,265 defined as rural, roughly a 72/28 percentage breakdown.
The population of Junction Township (including Grand Junction) dropped to 1,162 residents in 2010 from 1,327 in 2000. Subtracting the Dana and Grand Junction residents (895 total) means that 267 residents live in the rural areas of the township. The breakdown of town/rural residents in Junction Township is 77/23.
Some of those residences are so close to the towns—especially in Grand Junction—that the actual number of inhabited farm residences more than a mile from town is even less.
The population in Washington Township dropped to 502 residents in 2010 from 594 in 2000. With 292 of the township’s residents in the town of Rippey, that indicates 210 live in the rural area. The town/rural breakdown for Washington Township is 58/42.
These numbers are significant because Junction and Washington Townships are the largest geographically in the county. Junction is the size of 1 2/3 townships; Washington the size of 1 1/3 townships.
Junction Township is the largest township in both size and population and is the second largest population district with the city of Jefferson the largest, 4,345. Scranton Township (includes town of Scranton) is next, 707, followed by Highland (includes Churdan), 538, and then Washington.
The 2010 populations of the other Greene County townships in order by size are: Paton (includes town of Paton), 396; Grant, 201; Jackson, 199; Bristol and Kendrick, each 192; Hardin, 168; Cedar and Franklin, each 158; Dawson, 156; Willow, 133; and Greenbrier, 129.
McCall then showed the school age population in the two districts in the last five years: Jefferson-Scranton had 1,138 students in grades K-12 in 2006 but has 1,041 in 2011, a decrease of 97 students while East Greene had 378 students grades K-12 in 2006 but 266 in in 2011, a decrease of 112 students.
The combined loss of students for the two districts, 209, equates to about 35-40 students a year for each of the last 5 years, or “about two classes” (classroom sizes), said McCall.
He also outlined the current school enrollment of Paton-Churdan, 153, which is the smallest of the county’s three districts and also sends some of its high school students to classes in Jefferson, which has been the situation for East Greene the last several years—especially for upper level, advance placement and vocational classes.
The Paton-Churdan school district spans the county’s four northern townships: Cedar, Highland, Dawson and Paton. Combined, their population is 934 and a good chunk of the southern half of Dawson Township (former Paton Consolidated School District) went over to Jefferson (now Jefferson-Scranton) when the Paton school district was closed in 1962. That territory stayed with Jefferson when the Paton-Churdan school district was created two years later.
However, the total K-12 enrollment in Paton-Churdan has held relatively steady for the last 5 years. Relative to overall size, however, McCall noted “Jefferson-Scranton and East Greene combined have lost more students in the last 5 years than are enrolled in the Paton-Churdan system.”
At this point in time, Paton-Churdan has expressed no interest in further sharing beyond its high school academics and sports sharing (football, wrestling, softball and baseball) agreements, which were renewed at the beginning of the current school year. Presently, East Greene shares only wrestling with JS beyond academic sharing, but next year EG will send its vocal and instrumental students to JS.
The three school districts do share teachers with the breakdowns anywhere from 80/20 to 50/50.
McCall noted that Greene County’s total current school age population, 1,460 students, is 15.6% of the county’s total population, 9,336. “Our firm has been working with school districts with a 12% to 28% of the population range,” he explained. “So, having a 15.6% school-age population in Greene County is somewhat reasonable. That most likely will go down to 12% but not much lower.”
McCall the outlined the physical infrastructure of the two school buildings in the East Greene district and the four buildings in the Jefferson-Scranton district. He noted that all of the buildings are “solid, good facilities. Structurally, they are all fairly good and all are well maintained.”
Most importantly, he emphasized that all of them “are safe places for students to have an education.”
The buildings and their square footage are:
Rippey: 36,000 square feet, a multi-floor facility built in the early 1920s with an addition in the late 1950s that included a multi-floor expansion to the west (check this) and some single-floor classroom space along with a gymnasium/auditorium and locker rooms and new entry-way and foyer to the east side of the original building.
Grand Junction: 50,000 square feet, but some space is not included, which he said was the “sub-basement under the 1954 addition which is the building’s school lunchroom and kitchen. The multi-floor portion of the building was opened in 1915 while the gymnasium/auditorium and some classroom space were added in 1939 and three classrooms, music room, lunchroom (basement) and new entrance, lobby and restrooms were the 1954 addition.
Jefferson-Scranton District Administration and Special Programs Building: 14,000 square feet. This is a former lower elementary grade building located across the parking lot from the current middle school (which is the former Jefferson High School).
Jefferson-Scranton Elementary: 63,000 square feet in a single story “that functions well for an elementary school,” said McCall. Using a measuring stick of 130 square feet per student, a school building of this size works optimally with 400 to 450 students but “500 students would be tight—that would be too many students. A school building of this size (63,000 square feet) is the recommended size for new school construction for serving between 400 to 450 students, so the elementary school is a good fit for its current and proposed future use.
Jefferson-Scranton Middle School: 55,000 square feet which is a bit misleading, McCall pointed out, as 15,000 square feet of the total is the gymnasium/auditorium (used for high school athletics--basketball, wrestling, volleyball). McCall said the actual academic space is 40,000 square feet. A multi-story facility located near downtown Jefferson, this building was constructed in the same era (1915-1925) as the oldest portions of the Rippey and Grand Junction buildings. “The classrooms are fairly small, which does not provide much flexibility for middle school programs,” he said. “As a functional middle school, it leaves something to be desired, but it’s usable for the given time frame.”
Jefferson-Scranton High School: 86,000 square feet, this facility (constructed in the late 1960s) is a single-story structure that can handle 400 to 450 students. Currently, 334 students are enrolled in Jefferson-Scranton High School and with the 87 current students enrolled in East Greene High School, the total enrollment for whole grade sharing would be 421 high school students.
The combined total of school facility space is 299,772 square feet. “That’s a tremendous amount of space and you don’t need that much space for 1,300 students.”
McCall outlined the cost savings for each district based on an incentive formula created by the state to encourage whole-grade sharing. The formula takes the total cost per student in the district that will send its students to its sharing partner, and multiplies that times 10% of the number of students sent to the partner school.
Grand Junction 5th-6th grade facility: With this center handling the 5th and 6th grade programs, the total number of students would be 212 with 54 from East Greene and 158 from Jefferson-Scranton. Total savings: $5,965 x 15.8 = $94,247 for Jefferson-Scranton.
Jefferson 7th-8th grade facility: With 38 students from East Greene added to 160 students from Jefferson-Scranton, the facility would house 198 students with a cost per student of $5,817. Total savings: $5,817 x 3.8 = $22,105.
Jefferson 9th-12th grade facility: 87 from East Greene added to the 334 from Jefferson-Scranton would comprise of high school of 421 students. Total savings: $5,817 x 8.7 = $50,608.
The savings for Jefferson-Scranton would be $94,247 and the savings for East Greene would be $72, 713 for a combined savings between the two districts of $166,000.
McCall also shared information of other school districts in the state of approximately 1,300 students and the number of attendance centers and total number of teachers for each. The attendance centers ranged from 3 to5 with the average number of teachers at 92.3. Earlier, he had noted that the largest cost for school districts is personnel—at about 80% of the total district expenditures.
“It’s about 110 to 112 at present, which is about 20 more than the average, but with an annual retirement rate of 5-8% within 2 to 3 years it would be reduced from 110 to 95,” said McCall.
So, McCall concluded, the big picture look by grade levels and attendance centers would be:
K-4: Attendance centers at Grand Junction and Jefferson
5-6: Grand Junction
7-8: Jefferson
9-12: Jefferson
His summary report also noted these three points:
• Phase out Rippey
• Monitor the districts’ continuing demographics
• Consider discussions with adjacent school districts (most notably Paton-Churdan)
Looking down-range, the combined district could look at phasing out the existing middle school in Jefferson and build a new 5-8 attendance center adjacent to the high school. With 5th and 6th grade students shifted away from Grand Junction, that facility would continue as a primary attendance center and town center at Grand Junction. One option, however, would be to tear down the existing multi-story building which was opened in 1915.
He did, however, point out that the 3-story portion of the Grand Junction building is “very solid.”
McCall also briefly touched on future use of the Rippey school building and the future use of the middle school building in Jefferson should a new 5-8 building be constructed in the future. He suggested community services and new business incubator as possible uses as part of the “town center” concept.
The middle school building in Jefferson could be adapted to work with the existing Greene County Recreation Center, McCall said, and development of the site to include a possible acquatic facility would give Jefferson recreation amenities to keep pace with other larger nearby communities like Carroll, Boone, Ames and Des Moines.
He said the two school boards are looking at a Feb. 1, 2012, date to make their intentions known and get the process moving forward, so they can take advantage of the cost-savings incentives that are currently in place.
According to the Iowa Code, if the two boards make a decision to pursue whole grade sharing, then not less than 90 days prior to signing an agreement, each board must publicly announce its intent to negotiate a sharing agreement.
Then, not less than 30 days prior to signing the agreement, each board would need to hold a public hearing outlining the proposed sharing plan which would allow for comments by the parents or guardians of the affected pupils and the certificated employees of the school district.
