We believe there are better, less expensive options with lesser risk that will serve our community better in the coming years.  The plan below is just for the purposes of discussion and is based on the independent enrollment forecast and facilities analysis we just received on August 13, 2024 from RSP & Associates.   We hope this can show another alternative that has not been explored with our community.

An Alternative Plan (Estimated Cost $80M to $100M)

• Construction of a two-story, 700-student grade school in or near Plato Center. ($55M)
• This would manage expected growth in the pre-K to 5 cohort and is longer-term likely to be a better outcome than further expansions to existing elementary schools. 
• This will allow a shift of 500 or more students out of the four existing elementary schools, bringing their functional capacities down to roughly 80% (based on RSP’s functional capacity numbers), eliminates mobile units, eliminates compression across all grade schools and leaves room at all 5 schools for additional possible future growth.
• Alternatively, there is the option to add 8 classrooms at Prairie View, Country Trails, and Howard B. Thomas rather than purpose-build an entire elementary school.
• An 8- to 12-classroom addition to PKMS to manage expected growth in the 6-7 cohort. ($15M)
• As RSP’s report clearly shows, CMS has enough space to expand 8th grade offerings well beyond a decade.   Prairie Knolls needs to address some nominal compression in the next 10 years that is easily handled with expanding the building as it was designed to do.
• Alternatively, there is the option to add an 8th grade wing to Prairie Knolls Middle School and create a "unified middle school" at that site.  There is sufficient acreage to do so.
• Address "pinch points" at CHS to improve experience. ($10M)
• Improvements to include additional parking and west driveway realignment, elimination of hallway lockers and remodeling to include locker banks to address narrow corridor issues, and re-introduction of traditional cafeteria seating to maximize capacity. 

Central High School will be able to accommodate up to 2,000 students with the opening of the new 20-classroom addition in Winter 2024/2025.  RSP & Associates gave it a "functional capacity" of 1,914 students.  RSP's Report shows that CHS is expected to have enough space to last us through 2033/2034, unless significant new home growth takes place within the next decade.  

• Cafeteria, auditorium, and parking improvement can be addressed on the current CHS campus.
• Keeping CHS as our high school allows us to maintain use of the brand new field house we just built in 2018 (which we will be paying for until 2038), improve and add parking for sporting and other events, add 48,000 sq.ft. of space for a CTE wing, a 25 meter pool or additional classrooms (with additional space available for additional square footage for classrooms) or other facilities as driven by the input of the larger community.  
• REMEMBER:  Central High School was designed and engineered to accommodate a THIRD FLOOR and that option is not represented in the image below.  Adding that floor could provide room for another 400 students (16 classrooms) in the future, meaning CHS could remain our high school campus for decades to come. The new 20-classroom addition is also designed to add a third floor which could provide room for another 300 students (10 classrooms). 
• CHS has the potential to house over 2,400 students with the third floor additions.  While cost and logistical challenges may exist, this is an option that should be explored for the future as the community paid to have these features available.

This visual should show what the possibilities are at our existing CHS campus today and encourage those that would like to maintain our recent $22 million investment in Central High School that expansion IS possible.

1. All district facilities will be age-designed and age-appropriate – no conversions from one building type to another
2. Potential for aquatics, expanded fine arts, and expanded CTE or classroom facilities at expanded CHS – some of which are not in current District high school proposal 
3. No further long-term use of 70+ year old CMS building
4. Flexibility to respond to future growth by implementing any or all of Phase 2-3 plan components according to actual growth