By VICKI URBANIK

Five Duneland Schools already exceed, or are very close to exceeding, 100 percent of school capacity, under one of the standards used to evaluate school building space.

In terms of what’s viewed as the ideal school capacity, only two Duneland schools meet the ideal.

Consultant Robert Boyd shared those and other statistics on school capacity Thursday with members of the Duneland Key Communicator Committee, which is currently studying whether the Duneland Schools need a new school.

Boyd’s statistics show that Duneland Schools, in general, are above the ideal capacity and that the situation will worsen under enrollment projections. Projections show that the overall Duneland School enrollment will climb from 5,923 this year to 6,365 in 2015. Boyd has recommended that Duneland should plan for enrollment to hit 6,900; at that figure, the current facilities would collectively be at 114 percent of capacity.

Thursday’s meeting, held at Liberty Intermediate School, was the committee’s second in a series of meetings.

Boyd reviewed the current school year’s capacity statistics for each Duneland School. The committee members then took a tour of LIS, which, according to the capacity figures, is the only school with plenty of available space.

Boyd opened his talk by outlining two different ways to analyze school capacity. The first is “actual” capacity, which is based on a classroom size of 25 students per room without regard to lower class sizes required by Indian’s Prime Time program. Under the “actual capacity” standard, classrooms are basically filled to their physical capacity.

The second standard is “functional” capacity, which takes into account the Prime Time classroom ratios and which is the standard used to provide the best use of space to enhance instruction.

Boyd noted that before Prime Time was enacted in 1985, it wasn’t uncommon in Indiana to have 30 or 40 kids in each classroom, with the standard guideline that each classroom should be 900 square feet. But all that changed with Prime Time, which calls for a district-wide ratio of 18 students per classroom in kindergarten and the first grade, 20 per classroom in second and third grade, and 25 students in third grade and beyond.

For the elementary schools, Boyd’s statistics do not lump in art, music, special ed, computer labs, and other instructional programs in with the classroom space. Boyd said it’s true that if schools didn’t have music or art or other specials, there would be more room for classrooms.

But, he said, the question is “do we want to warehouse kids or do we want quality programming?”

Boyd said ideally, schools should fall between 90 and 92 percent of their functional capacity.

His statistics show that all but two Duneland schools are above that ideal capacity.

The five elementary schools collectively have 2,141 students this school year. The “functional” capacity for all five total is 2,117 students, meaning that the five schools are now being used at 101.1 percent of their capacity. When looking at actual capacity, the five schools can hold a total of 2,725 students, so they are currently at 78.6 percent of their actual physical space.

The “functional” capacity breakdown for each elementary school in the current school year as follows:

Bailly: 99.2 percent

Brummitt: 103.9 percent

Jackson: 87.6 percent

Liberty: 108.9 percent

Yost: 92.8 percent

Boyd said that Liberty Elementary not only is well above the ideal capacity, but that it also has fewer support spaces than the other schools, such as computer labs and spaces for aides. A different situation exists at Jackson, where four rooms that could be used for classroom space are now being used for teacher aide rooms.

If the enrollment projections ring true, and Duneland should plan for 2,300 elementary students total, the current school buildings would be at 108.6 percent of their functional capacity, Boyd said.

Boyd highly commended the Duneland Schools for ensuring that each elementary school has full-time art, music, physical education and media staff. “That, my friends, is most unusual,” he said. “That’s a mark of quality.”

At the two intermediate schools, Westchester Intermediate is well above the ideal capacity -- at 98.2 percent -- while LIS is well below, at 68.3 percent.

Although the group is not yet ready to make any recommendations, Boyd threw out one possibility: Adjust the boundary lines for LIS. Currently, only fifth and sixth graders from Liberty and Jackson townships attend LIS.

Chesterton Middle School is now at 95.1 percent of functional capacity and Chesterton High School is at 102.3 percent of functional capacity, under Boyd’s statistics. In terms of actual capacity, the numbers are 71.3 percent and 77 percent respectively.

The CMS capacity does not take into account the space that’s being used for the Alternative School or the Duneland YMCA’s day care program -- only the current instructional spaces.

If CMS enrollment hits 1,200 as projected, Boyd said the school will be at 131 percent capacity. CHS would hit the 117 percent functional capacity if its enrollment grows to 2,300, under his statistics.

Next Meeting

The next Communicator Group meeting will be at CMS at 7 p.m. on April 3. In addition to a regular meeting, the committee is expected to take a tour of the school.

Boyd said he anticipates that the group will need to meet two more times after the CMS meeting before it will be ready to prepare recommendations.

Posted 3/14/2008