In the next six months, Clark-Pleasant expects to start the process to build a new elementary school.
Before that happens, students likely will need to take classes in mobile classrooms, class sizes will get larger, and some students from new neighborhoods will need to go to schools further from their home.
What school officials need to decide in the coming months is how to pay for the new school and other needs at existing buildings now and as enrollment grows, Superintendent Patrick Spray said.
The new elementary school is the second new school to be discussed recently in Johnson County. Last month, Center Grove approved plans to move forward with a new elementary school for the southern portion of the school district. That school could be built as soon as 2019.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryIn both cases, school officials are looking at ways that the projects would not need to be approved in a public referendum. Schools do not have to get approval in a public vote if they can afford the debt for the new school within their current budget. But voters can still petition to send the project to a public vote. If approved in a public vote, the debt for the new building would be outside of taxpayers’ tax caps that limit property tax bills based on the property’s value.
How the new school would be paid for is an issue Clark-Pleasant is discussing because the school district is still paying off debt for past building projects, including Clark-Pleasant Middle School.
Currently, the school district’s annual debt payment is $14 million. But as debt is paid off, the school district could take on more to build a new school, Spray said.
That allows the school district to keep taxes at a similar level if the project does not go to a referendum, he said.
School officials have also looked at the demographics of the school district and found that could make getting a public referendum approved difficult, he said.
But officials also have to look at the school district’s other future needs, including new roofs for existing buildings, repairs and updates to heating and air conditioning systems and rebuilding parking lots that are beginning to crumble, said Jay Staley, Clark-Pleasant director of business.
A new roof alone can cost more than $1 million, Spray said.
For now, officials plan to monitor enrollment to see if it is at, below or above expectations, Staley said.
If growth in the school district slows, then a new elementary school could be delayed, Spray said.
But as of now, with the recent growth and future projections, officials need to start planning for a new school so that it can be built and ready for students by 2021, Spray said. That’s why they are looking at starting the process to approve and build the new school in the next year, he said.
As of Nov. 21, the total enrollment in Clark-Pleasant schools was 6,440, and both Pleasant Crossing Elementary School and Grassy Creek Elementary School were at or near capacity for the ideal number of students in a classroom, Spray said.
That comes after the school district’s recent redistricting, where nearly 900 students were moved to other schools and the intermediate school was converted to become Grassy Creek Elementary.
What that means is that officials will now need to look at larger class sizes, with as many as 25 students in a classroom. How many students each school can hold is larger if more students are in each classroom. Some school buildings, such as Clark, Break-o-Day and Whiteland elementary schools, have a low enough enrollment that they have enough space to keep class sizes at 22 students or less, according to calculations by the school district.
But Pleasant Crossing Elementary is nearly reaching capacity for having class sizes of 22, and Grassy Creek — the newly created elementary school — is already beyond capacity with 23 students per class, the school district’s numbers said.
School officials prefer to have larger classes with older students, so that the younger children can remain in smaller class sizes, Spray said.
School officials also are expecting to need portable classrooms in the near future as buildings get too crowded, he said. That won’t be needed next year, but could be needed after that, he said.
Another option would be to move students to schools that are less crowded. The goal would be not to move students again who were just moved, Spray said.
But as new neighborhoods are built and families move in, their children may need to be sent to a school further away from home if the school closer to them is too full, he said.
Currently, new homes in at least four neighborhoods are under construction on the east side of Greenwood and would send their children to Clark-Pleasant schools. That is a number school officials closely watch when planning, Spray said.
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Here is a look at enrollment at Clark-Pleasant elementary schools:
Break-O-Day: 452
Clark: 590
Grassy Creek: 851
Pleasant Crossing: 746
Whiteland: 429
Capacity with 22 to 25 students per classroom
Break-O-Day: 484 to 550
Clark: 638 to 725
Grassy Creek: 792 to 900
Pleasant Crossing: 748 to 850
Whiteland: 462 to 525
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Here is a look at current and projected enrollment:
Total current enrollment: 6,440
Current elementary enrollment: 3,068
Projection 2018-2019: 3,150
Projection 2020-2021: 3,200
Projection 2023-2024: 3,300
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