Various leaders of the committee provided a 5 year outlook for the school district in order to have it run more efficiently.
At the top of that list was the closing of Brush College School.
Director of Business affairs and member of the Building Utilization Committee Todd Covault says the district plans on having a majority of the 180 students attending Brush College to split up between Hope Academy and Harris Elementary.
“Brush College students who live north or west of ADM would attend Hope Academy and the students that live south or east of ADM would attend Harris Elementary.”
In a school year defined by movement and change; one thing has stayed the same, the size of classrooms throughout DPS classrooms.
The average elementary school classroom, grades K through 6 is just over 20 students, middle school is at 20.2 students and high school is at 24 students per class.
Deputy Superintendent Lisa Mann says that classes like band, choir and gym skew the numbers a little bit, but bigger is not always bad.
“We prefer our caps for K-2 at 24 and then in 3rd through 6th grade our cap is 27. Our averages are a little bit below what our goals are, so I think our class size is very good.”
The numbers for this school year grew slightly from those in 2011 in the middle schools but remained the same in elementary and high school.
Mann says that the classroom size for DPS is in line with the average throughout Illinois.
Committee member and DPS building manager Mike Sotiroff says after the committee crunched some numbers; Brush College wasn’t financially suitable to stay open.
“The building utilization committee took a survey of the 10 day attendance at each building and realized we have too many elementary schools, and we need to close one.”
The district has been holding several open meetings to discuss these changes and ideas with school administration, faculty and parents.
With low attendance so far by parents, school superintendent Gloria Davis urges everyone who can, to attend and find out what is going on.
“It is very helpful for them (parents) to come out and hear information regarding their child’s school regarding the district as it relates to their child’s school.
They need to come out and hear the information and be informed. We are strongly encouraging and urging them to do so”
Davis says parents are not only encouraged to attend, but to also speak up as the district benefits from hearing their opinions.
The next meeting will be held tomorrow night at Garfield Montessori from 6 p.m. until 7:30 p.m.
As far as actually getting the students to school, Covault says they plan to reroute some of the busses that DPS already has in rotation.
Sotiroff said during the school board meeting that in order to renovate the school and make it usable for the long term it would cost over $1.7 million; closing the school, the district stands to save over $400,000 in facility costs.
