The Newton Community School District has scheduled two upcoming community forums on the topic of reconfiguration.
The forums will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday and March 3 at the Des Moines Area Community College’s Newton Campus.
The format for the forums, according to Superintendent Bob Callaghan, is subject to change, as that is a discussion item on the agenda for Monday’s regular board meeting at Aurora Heights Elementary School. However, the plan for the forums, if utilized, would be considerably different from forums held in 2014 about reconfiguration.
There will be three members of the school board at the forums: Robyn Friedman, Andy Elbert and board president Sheri Benson. The district’s administrative team will also be present, and all school principals have been invited to attend.
Callaghan said the forums will begin with a presentation of data, which he expects to take about 30 minutes. Then, the board members will assist in small “table discussions” that will be used to develop questions for administration.
Questions will then be submitted in writing. Administrators will then sort through the questions to determine if there are duplicates, and then will read questions aloud and provide answers.
Callaghan expects each forum to end by about 8:30 p.m.
Monday’s regular board meeting is set for 6:30 p.m. in the Aurora Heights gymnasium. The board will hold its next regular meeting March 9 at the Emerson Hough building.
The board, along with the School Improvement Advisory Committee, has been discussing reconfiguration for more than a year.
School configuration is somewhat tied to the new build of the Berg Complex that the board recently decided to take to voters as a potential bond issue. While Callaghan acknowledged the aging complex must be either renovated or replaced soon, regardless of what grade levels it is used for, a grade-level designation might aid a campaign to get voters to help with tens of millions of dollars in Berg costs.
“We would design an elementary school much differently for K-3 than we would if it were for fifth- and sixth-graders,” Callaghan said.
The Berg Complex is currently grades 7 and 8 on the middle-school side, which is unlikely to change. However, the elementary half is one of the district’s two schools that housed kindergarten through the third grade, and reconfiguration talks have mentioned plans that would make it a grade 5-6 facility.
A motion to designate Berg as a grades 5-8 complex was defeated at a well-attended Feb. 9 board meeting, 4-3.
NCSD recently purchased the former Hy-Vee building, and is in the process of assessing costs to convert it into a building that will host administration and other offices, the Basics & Beyond program and professional-development space.
That allowed the board to return the Emerson Hough building to an educational facility, meaning it can return to being a regular school, as it was from 1926 to 2010. However, the grade levels that will use that building in 2016-17 have not been determined.
Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com