March 29, 2024

Board urged to return Emerson Hough to elementary school

Advisory committee makes recommendation

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Parents that want to see both the return of neighborhood schools in Newton and  Emerson Hough being reconfigured back into an elementary school gained a new ally Monday.

The School Improvement Advisory Committee made the recommendation to the Newton Community School District Board of Education that the district should convert Emerson back into an elementary school during Monday’s board meeting.

“What we have done is look at all of the different things that have been presented to us,” said Paula Klosterboer, a teacher at Aurora Heights Elementary School and a SIAC member.

Klosterboer said this recommendation was based on information from the parent and teacher surveys, the demographic projections the district received from its study conducted by RSP and Associates and parents desired class sizes.

“All of those things have led us to believe that this facility is needed as an educational learning center for elementary students,” Klosterboer said.

SIAC was created during the latter part of 2013 to advise the board. It’s made up of parents, community members and various district staff members, and has three sub-committees — facilities, staffing and budget. Other member of the SIAC’s facilities subcommittee that presented were district teachers Tammy Parriott, Sara Van Manen and community members Tom Hoover and Chantelle Lundberg.

Earlier during the meeting, Superintendent Bob Callaghan presented the updated results of the K-6 parent survey on building configuration. This updated resulted combined parents answers from central registration, back-to-school night and the additional week the board requested the survey be reopened after its Aug. 25 meeting.

The original results showed that parents were conflicted on a return to neighborhood schools, with 62 percent of respondents feeling that academic factors, such as instructional resources, curriculum focus, learning styles, teacher collaboration and student grouping should play a bigger role in determining building configuration.

Only 38 percent of respondents thought that student travel, number of schools attending, grade level interaction and long-term student-parent-staff relationships should play a role in building configuration.

Callaghan said the official parent count on the original survey amounted to 177 participants.

With the new results factored in, 359 parents representing the district’s K-6 students participated in the survey. Those parents accounted for 777 total children, which amounts to a third of the student population in the district,  and 503 K-6 students, which is 25 percent of the K-6 student population.

According to the final results, 54 percent of participants felt the previously listed academic factors should play a role in building configuration. Forty-six percent of participants felt that the previously listed non-academic factors should be a factor.

The board acknowledged that it received SIAC’s recommendation and would take it into consideration, however, it made it clear that this was in no way an indication of any future decisions on its part.

Since the district closed Emerson Hough as an elementary school in a 5-2 vote in 2010, the building has been used for a variety of purposes by the district. It houses both the central and business offices, a branch of the Heartland Area Education Agency,the district’s low-income based preschool program, Drake HeadStart,  Basics and Beyond Alternative School and the district’s new Disciplinary Alternative Program.

Although the board made no official moves based on SIAC’s recommendation to it, Klosterboer asked that the board eventually give the committee guidance on what its next move should be.

“We know that we need to move forward because there are decisions that will need to be made regarding this building and those people that are using the facility,” Klosterboer said.

As of April, Emerson Hough serves 128 students, has 15 classrooms and five special rooms (music, art, LMC (library), guidance and physical education). The building has potential for 17 classrooms, according  to a facilities study conducted by FRK Architects and Engineers.

“In the not so distant future, the number of classrooms (in the district), will be maxed out in  our current state,” Van Manen said.

The board plans on having a work session with FRK either on Sept. 10 or Sept. 16 to discuss district facilities.

Contact Senior Staff Writer Ty Rushing at (641) 792-3121 ext. 6532 or at trushing@newtondailynews.com.