School consolidation sparks ire in Pacific

More than 100 people filled the Robertsville gym, with many having to stand or sit on the floor. Robertsville parents, grandparents, retirees, as well as other district parents listened and voiced their concerns about the options that the board will vote on at the end of January.

“No decisions have been made,” Schwierjohn said. “This is the process, and we want to work through the process, and board members are here tonight because they want your concerns, and they want to hear your questions.”

Schwierjohn gave a presentation showing enrollment demographics and projections for the next 10 years, as well as a chart showing the number of students in each school building and their capacity percentage. According to the chart, Robertsville is at 80 percent capacity while Truman, Zitzman, Nike and Coleman are in the 50 to 60 percent capacity range.

Schwierjohn said rebalancing the schools would help with staff efficiency and operational savings. Several teachers covering subjects such as physical education, art and music, as well as librarians, currently have to travel between Nike, Truman, Coleman and Robertsville.

She also included a breakdown of repairs needed to update Robertsville. The total was $12.5 million. Schwierjohn said Robertsville is the oldest building in the district at 64 years.

Despite Robertsville being the district’s oldest building, architects informed the board that Pacific Intermediate, which was built 61 years ago, is the building which is actually in the most critical condition.

After numerous evaluations of buildings were conducted, and finances and enrollment projections compiled and presented to the board members, Schwierjohn said, a number of options came into focus as to how the district should move toward the future.

“The Board of Education said first and foremost, we want to provide a quality, innovative, sustainable learning environment for our students and work environment for our staff,” Schwierjohn said.

On Jan. 31, the board will vote to implement one of three options.

Option 1

The first is to keep all students in their schools and renovate Pacific Intermediate. Schwierjohn said this option would not affect elementary students, but one concern is where to place the fifth- and sixth-grade students during construction of their building. This option would also not address the unbalanced class sizes.

With this option, select teachers would still be shared between elementary schools. The Pacific Intermediate renovation would cost $29.8 million.

Option 2

Option 2 is to construct a new middle school for seventh- and eighth-graders and redraw the boundary lines of the elementary schools, which would involve moving Robertsville students to Nike and Coleman and moving Truman students to Coleman and Zitzman. The new middle school would cost $31 million.

This option would mean certain teachers would no longer have to travel, and the district would repurpose Pacific Intermediate into a community gym, district storage, central in-town bus station, alternative school and maintenance and technology center. This would have the potential to cut operating costs as the district would no longer have to lease a building for the alternative school.

Schwierjohn said Robertsville has the potential to be repurposed for the Franklin County Special Education Cooperative, which would allow special needs students in the district to attend school inside the district’s boundaries. Currently, the district’s special needs students are being transported to a location in St. Louis due to the capacity limitations at the Franklin County Special Education Cooperative, which is currently located southwest of St. Clair, she said.

Option 2 would also have the seventh- and eighth-graders closer to Pacific High School, allowing for easier access to after-school activities such as band and sports.

Concerns for this option include the movement of the students and the potential shift in culture, according to the district. Another concern is that a wing of Zitzman would need to be renovated in five to 10 years.

Option 3

The third option is to combine one of the elementary schools into two others. For this option, either Truman students would be placed at Coleman and Zitzman or Robertsville students would go to Nike and Coleman.

Audience Input

Throughout Schwierjohn’s presentation, audience members had numerous questions and concerns about how students would adapt to relocating to a different learning environment.

One person asked if the district had looked into studies that had been done on drastically changing a young child’s learning environment.

At times, Assistant Superintendent Tom Sauvage helped Schwierjohn answer questions from the audience.

While some audience members argued amongst themselves, another participant said the district is doing the best it can, as there is a larger problem at the state and federal level with the defunding of public schools.

“We all need to work together,” he said.

Several audience members said it seemed that the decision was already made, and that the board didn’t care what parents thought.

Schwierjohn said that was untrue and no decisions had been made yet.

However, at the St. Clair Board of Education meeting Thursday evening, St. Clair R-XII Superintendent Dr. Kyle Kruse mentioned in his report that there was an opportunity to move the Franklin County Special Education Cooperative.

“We have recently been made aware of a potential opportunity for the Franklin County Special Education Cooperative,” he said. “At present, the co-op building is at capacity. It also has an array of challenges related to maintenance and needed modernization. The Meramec Valley R-III School District may soon have a school building available for repurposing, and we have opened a discussion about possibly moving the co-op to their district. We will keep you informed as this opportunity continues to develop.”

The Meramec Valley R-III School District is holding more information sessions in the weeks leading up to the final board vote.

Nike Elementary’s session is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 16; Coleman Elementary’s session is Monday, Jan. 22; and Zitzman is Tuesday, Jan. 23. All sessions begin at 5:30 p.m. and are open to parents and community members. A public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, at which all board members will be present to listen to more concerns from the public.