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2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Tuesday, September 29, 2009 11:20 AM

Is school at Eugene Field a thing of the past?

Ottawa school officials aim for efficiency, narrow options

By COURTNEY SERVAES, Herald Staff Writer

Marge Stevens is no stranger to Eugene Field Elementary.

She taught there. Her children went to school there.

Even so, Stevens told fellow Ottawa School Board members Monday that it’s time to be equitable, time to stop using the building as an elementary school.

Stevens, along with the rest of the school board, spent about an hour Monday night discussing questions posed by community members during the board’s special public meeting earlier this month.

“No matter what we do to Eugene Field, it’s still going to be landlocked,” Stevens said. “No matter what we do, it’s not going to have equity.”

Board members weighed each of the four options for the district’s Master Facilities Plan again Monday — showing preference for options four and eight. The school board originally looked at eight options but narrowed the list to four. Options still are identified by their original number designations.

Option four — which would cost the district about $32 million — would provide the district with a new elementary school in addition to renovating and expanding Garfield Elementary and both the middle and high schools. Option eight — which would cost about $30 million — would add on to Garfield Elementary and Eisenhower Elementary. Both options four and eight would take Eugene Field offline as a functioning elementary school, though it could be used as an administrative building.

“The only way we’re going to be efficient is to have less buildings to maintain,” board member Dennis George said.

Board member Susan Ward said she preferred option four because it was “cleaner” than option eight. Option four would require students to make only one move — from Eisenhower Elementary and Eugene Field to the new elementary school — when renovation time began. Option eight, on the other hand, would require a two-phased move that would last longer — moving students from Eisenhower Elementary to Garfield and then from Eugene Field to the renovated Eisenhower Elementary.

“It’s cleaner in terms of moving kids,” Ward, who works at Ransom Memorial Hospital, said. “I know from moving patients around, it’s brutal. Kids get invested in their building.”

While the board decided that it preferred options four and eight, Stevens said the only options she didn’t want were options six and seven — mostly because those options renovate and preserve Eugene Field as an elementary school, rather than as an administrative building.

Stevens said school board members decided several years ago that they wanted to create elementary schools that were equal in all offerings — whether that be the library, classroom or other facilities.

“That’s why we started this whole thing,” Stevens said. “We need to do that. However, many boards ago decided that, and we need to do that.”