Committee must gauge growth to determine school size
Posted on Thursday, February 7, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/61996/
Members of Fayetteville High School Select Committee 2 received a variety of information about high school enrollment, growth rates and population to consider at a meeting Wednesday evening.
The committee has been charged with recommending whether to retrofit the current site, 40 acres on the 1000 block of West Stone Street, or build a new school elsewhere.
Associate Superintendent Randy Willison said one thing the committee should decide is what kind of method it wants to use to evaluate district growth. This will determine how big the school should be when ninth grade is added to the campus following a major renovation or replacement.
Using the cohort survival method — a calculation used by the Arkansas Department of Education to predict growth rates — school enrollment is predicted to grow by 2. 6 percent annually, Willison said. This means the redesigned school would be at 90 percent capacity if it is built for 3, 000 students and opened around 2015.
Following that formula, he implied the district might as well build a 4, 000-student school to make the new construction worthwhile.
However, the district’s growth rate in recent years has actually been slower than that, he said.
In 2000, the district had a fall enrollment of 2, 474 students in ninth through 12 th grades. This year, it only has 37 more students, Willison said. In addition, the overall K-12 growth rate has been less than 2. 6 percent.
“ As of 2006, our K-12 growth rate over that time averaged 1. 4 percent, ” Willison said. “ Right now, we’re down 100 kids from last year. ”
For a variety of reasons, he said, the student population in the elementary grades is historically higher than it is by the time those students get to high school.
In terms of school size, if the enrollment follows the average increase in recent years, a school built for 3, 000 students probably won’t reach capacity until 2036, Willison said. If it is built for 3, 200 students, it will take more than 50 years to reach that amount, he said.
“ That’s one of the biggest misconceptions in this community is that we have this rapid growth, ” committee member Rolf Wilkin said.
During a presentation on city population trends, city Planning and Development Management Director Tim Conklin reported that from 2000 to 2006, the city population grew from 58, 047 to 68, 726. That equates to a growth of 2. 85 percent annually.
This is actually less than the cumulative growth from 1990 to 2000, when the population grew by an average of 3. 26 percent annually.
“ About 80 percent of the population is 18 years and older, ” Conklin said.
While the city limits and school district lines are not an exact match, in 2006 only 3, 563 city residents lived outside the Fayetteville School District. Most city limits not covered by Fayetteville are serviced by the Farmington, Springdale or Greenland school systems.
David Swearingen, an architect with Crafton, Tull, Sparks, reviewed the dimensions of certain rooms within the high school and how they compared to new state standards. The food service area, for example, covers 10, 200 square feet and should have 16, 600 square feet based on the current population.
With 3, 000 students, it should have 27, 000 square feet, he said.
Willison said older rooms are grandfathered and do not have to be upgraded, but if the district builds new facilities or remodels, then the improvements must meet current standards.
One of the challenges with building on the current site is the hilly terrain. Rooms built into the ground could not be classrooms because new classrooms must have natural light, he said.
Committee chair man Tim Hudson said topics discussed at the next meeting will include defining infrastructure and analyzing the potential and limitations of the current site and alternate sites for a new school.