Stay or move? : Don’t cling to the past: Students, teachers should get modern high school
Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/61370/
Fayetteville High School has
served our students and
community for more than 50 years and, sadly, is at the end of its useful life. Our students and teachers deserve and desperately need a new, modern high school.
With nearly 1, 900 students, the classrooms are full, parking lots are beyond capacity and the auditorium and gym can only accommodate a fraction of the students at a time. The 58 exterior doors make it difficult, if not impossible, to secure: A recent bomb threat evacuation illustrated the challenges of safety with an older school design.
The 40-acre campus falls well below the state Department of Education’s recommended minimum of 65 acres.
The Fayetteville School Board has voted to support one high school with an approximate capacity of 3, 000 students, rather than splitting the district into two high school zones. They also voted to add the 9 th grade to the high school campus.
To accommodate 3, 000 students, the campus will need to be large enough for the education buildings, parking for approximately 1, 000 cars, a cafeteria, auditoriums for arts, drama, band and choir, space for club meetings, athletic fields for intramural sports, team sports of football, basketball, soccer, track, gymnastics, cheerleading and drill team. The design of the campus and buildings must also consider the critical need for security.
While the Stone Street location may appear to be more “ central” than other potential properties in Fayetteville, it is not “ central” to the student population. Outward migration trends of their parents have moved a large percentage of the children east and west of the “ center” of Fayetteville, making the heart of the student population well north and east of the current site and moving further away every year. This is demonstrated by the crowded Vandergriff and Holcomb elementary schools and the diminished numbers in Washington and Leverett and the relocation of Jefferson students to Owl Creek.
A high school is not a neighborhood school. It serves the entire district and thus demands the most convenient access to the greatest number of students and parents. As a community we must choose the location that can provide our students the very best educational experience.
We have heard the arguments that the loss of access to the University of Arkansas by the Fayetteville High School students would be devastating to the high school educational experience for many students. In fact, fewer than 20 FHS students were enrolled in courses at the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2007. Teachers and administrators will tell you that the proximity also creates problems with high school students interacting inappropriately with college-age students.
With our increasing taxes, city deficits and weak housing market, economics cannot be ignored. Cost is an excellent reason to move the school to a different location and build on a raw site. It would cost less to build from the ground up on an undeveloped piece of property than it would cost to build in a land-locked space and use off-site staging of the construction materials. Further, consider the disruption of school by the construction on the existing location, as well as the inconvenient loss of at least 750 parking places and the athletic facilities where a new school building would first be built before the current high school could be redeveloped. The outcome of the Stone Street project proposed by a community group would be a new building, a demolished, then rebuilt second multi-level building, a probable parking deck on a site too small to accommodate the necessary athletic facilities for intramural and team sports — all fully funded by the taxpayers of the Fayetteville School District. How do we tell our sixth- through 10 th-graders that they will be going to high school in a construction zone ? It’s not right and it’s not fair to them or to their teachers.
How would we pay for a high school campus at a different location ? Actually, Fayetteville might have a very unusual opportunity. If we could sell the current 40 acres with its buildings, athletic fields and parking lots to the University of Arkansas, the district would have a sizeable down payment toward a new $ 80 million to $ 85 million campus. The 2007 appraisal of the Stone Street property was in the $ 60 million range, which is probably on the high side of its worth, but only through negotiations will we really know. Why would the University of Arkansas be interested in this property ? It is the UA’s only chance to acquire such a significant piece of land that is contiguous to its existing campus. This could be, as they say, a win-win.
Our schools are our legacy; let’s take this opportunity to relocate the high school to an area with room to grow, to a facility that can compete regionally and will shine among the best schools in the nation. Our students deserve it, our teachers need it and our community will be better for it.
Judy McDonald is a former school board member. She represents Students First, a collection of former school board members and others who have become advocates for a new Fayetteville High School on a new location.