By KEVIN NEVERS

If the population of the Duneland School Corporation (DSC) continues to grow as it has over the last two years, the need could well emerge in the next five years to build another school—probably an elementary school, possibly in Liberty Township—and to re-district the whole of the corporation to optimize the distribution of students.

Yet well before any new school were built a more immediate need could emerge: to evict some of the programs currently leasing space from the DSC: Ycare at the elementary schools (Kcare at Jackson Elementary), Head Start at Westchester Intermediate, Parents as Teachers at Yost Elementary.

That’s the view of Duneland Superintendent Dirk Baer, and while he stops far short of calling the construction of a new school a certainty—in any case, the wind-up process would be a long one, what with bonding, remonstration, engineering, bidding, and groundbreaking—Baer does admit that both he and the Duneland School Board have been aware for some time of the potential impact of the rising population on facilities. “It’s a genuine concern,” he told the Chesterton Tribune on Friday, “and I think the board will be spending the next few months on developing an action plan.”

As it happens, the 2006-07 school year opened with the largest single enrollment increase in Baer’s memory, and all but one grade now has an enrollment in excess of 400 students, compared to average class sizes of 350 to 370 only a few years ago. Inevitably some of the schools are showing a strain.

By way of example Baer cited Liberty Elementary, which has experienced the greatest population growth of any school in the DSC, mainly due to the near build-out of the Westwood Manor and Abercrombie Woods subdivisions on C.R. 1050N in the Crocker area of Chesterton. “It’s tight there right now,” he said.

Baer cited as well the Rose Hill Estates subdivision on C.R. 1100 in Chesterton, whose unusual and altogether unexpected explosion of school-age children into the DSC contributed to the re-districting of Bailly Elementary. “A couple of years ago there was nothing there,” he said. “Now we’re running a couple of buses out of Rose Hill. Porter Cove was the same way. It snuck up on us. Nothing and then two years later we were running four or five buses out of there. But in that case we made a plan and were able to adjust.”

How well the DSC will be able to adjust to new development is an open question. In Chesterton alone there are four annexation petitions currently pending, two of which—one at the eastern terminus of East Porter Ave., the other on C.R. 1050 west of Abercrombie Woods—would tentatively provide for a total of 415 new single-family units. A third, for a mixed-use development immediately south of the Indiana Toll Road and east of Ind. 49, would provide for an unspecified number of residential units on 12 acres.

Elsewhere, the Village in Burns Harbor is going great guns and subdivisions are mushrooming throughout Liberty Township.

Meanwhile, virtually forgotten after all these years, scores of empty acres at Coffee Creek Center already within the Town of Chesterton could see the bulldozer within months, now that the Lake Erie Land Company has inked a joint-development deal with Chesterton Development Partners LLC, whose principal is Jim Gierczyk. At the moment Gierczyk is talking about the construction of 200 townhouse units in the northwest quadrant of Coffee Creek Center—not necessarily a great source of school-age children—but the potential exists for hundreds of single-family homes to go up over the next few years in Coffee Creek Center.

Baer is quick to note the irony of the strain placed on the DSC by all of this development. “One of the selling points for those subdivisions is the quality of the Duneland School Corporation,” he said. “We know that. And we want to maintain that reputation.”

Baer noted that he has unofficial arrangements with both the Chesterton and Porter Building Commissioners to keep him apprised of new residential projects as they enter the planning and permitting pipeline “so we have a little heads-up.” Take the prospect of 350 new units at the eastern terminus of East Porter Ave. “That’s something we need to know about as soon as the town knows about it,” he said. “Because it’s not just a question of how many homes but how many homes will have school-age kids.”

Still, there is no formal or even informal ongoing liaison between the DSC and the Tri-Town and Porter County advisory plan commissions, Baer said. No one in municipal government in Duneland ever consults with the DSC on the subject of development or annexation, nor has the DSC made a point, he admitted, of inviting or encouraging such consultation. “There hasn’t been a lot of dialogue,” he said.

Not that the Town of Chesterton, say, is unaware of the impact on the DSC of annexation and residential development. From the fiscal plan adopted by the Town Council in 2002 as part of the annexation of the so-called Hiteman area, the 75 acres which became Abercrombie Woods: “School services are independent of the town and service both Chesterton and the Hiteman annexation area. The development will impact the schools, but there is no fiscal impact on the Town of Chesterton.”

Not on the Town of Chesterton perhaps, but on its property taxpayers, should they be required to foot the bill for a bond issue to finance the construction of a new school. Or on its families, should Ycare or Head Start get the boot.

Not all of the schools are “tight.” Liberty Intermediate is in good shape with around 300 students, down from 500. Chesterton Middle School did not experience a great deal of growth this year and in any case could avail itself of the space currently leased to Ycare. “We haven’t needed that space to date but we’re getting close,” Baer observed. Chesterton High School, on the other hand, has an enrollment of approximately 1,900, was built for 2,200, and was designed to make the addition of a pod to serve another 300 or 400 students fairly easy.

But without any more growth at all, Baer said, the introduction of all-day kindergarten could bring matters to a head and make the construction of a new elementary—K through 4—a matter of some urgency. The DSC could opt to expand current facilities but there is a pedagogical issue at stake. “There’s only so much room to add on. And how big do you want an elementary school to be?”

“It’s probably time to bring in someone to do a demographic study,” Baer added. “Because if growth continues as it has in the last two years, in the next five we’re looking at the possible construction of a new facility. I think that’s realistic.”

Posted 9/25/2006