Analyzing the Iowa City Schools Facilities Assessment by BLDD Architects (PDF Attached)

The Iowa City Facilities Steering committee had been scheduled to meet this Monday to go over the results of the walk-through of the school district's buildings designed to assess the district facilities capacity and building conditions.

Unfortunately, that meeting was cancelled at the last minute (he grumpily noted). But we do have the slideshow that they were going to give and I have attached that to this document.

This second meeting was to be a part of a process where the committee and the public reacts to the numbers and the committee eventually gives a recommendation to the board over what they feel should be done first based on a hierarchy of needs.

I will give some of my first read through thoughts on the assessment and add more later. Feel free to add your own comments and ask questions you want me to get answered in the comments below. I'd like to add that although BLDD did explain a lot of their reasoning in the report, there still are some assumptions that are unclear without them here to answer questions, so do not take every element as gospel.

First Takeaways

• Capacity is subjective, but if you want someone to tell you Iowa City Schools have more than enough capacity, you're going to need to hire a different consultant: Alright, so awhile ago the Iowa City School Board set trigger points for combined high school enrollment at 3,750 before a new high school would be built.
  
  This was done using different enrollment numbers (not including special needs students in the same way) than the district does now, so it's has been up for debate how close the district is to this trigger, or if that trigger is even valid anymore. However, I mention that because it was derived from the combining what was thought to be when the two high schools had reached maximum capacity. The typical quoted capacity up to this point has been about 1,600 for City High and 1,900 or so for West. assumes the district has crammed every possible student into these two schools, thus necessitating a third comprehensive high school (or building expansions).
  
  This is why I mentioned capacity is subjective, because the BLDD assessment places the ideal capacity for the two buildings at about 1,700 for West and 1,400 for City High, putting West at already over capacity and climbing and City High just about right. But before you start quoting these numbers as gospel, these were determined using capacity numbers by BLDD that emphasizes a more flexible use of class room space for "21st Century Learning," and thus will necessarily be lower. The key to note is that under either definition of capacity, the old one or BLDD's, the district will be needing more room at the high school level fairly soon.
• As for elementary schools, it seems to confirm a lot of what parents have been complaining about: Now again these are BLDD capacity numbers so it's more of the ideal than maybe the answer to the question "how many kids can we reasonably to fit into this school." But I find it interesting that almost all of the elementary schools across the whole district are listed at being over capacity now, which would clearly suggest two or three strategically placed elementary schools could lighten the burden. Look at slide 32, it sort of speaks for itself.
  
  
• There's a lot of other infrastructure needs to be addressed, especially at the elementary level:  Parents and school board members might have to make some tough timing decisions based on the amount of needs laid out in the report. Do you want to address security concerns such as entrance placements and electronic locking of doors first, or is it more important to build new schools and make sure that there is air conditioning accross the district?
  
  One stat that jumped out to me is only six of 19 elementary buildings have secured entry spaces and only eight of 19 have air conditioning. Those will be costly things to fix if you want equity accross the board.

Those are some of my first takes on it. What jumped out to you?