South West Illinois News

The Columbia Unit School District 4 Board of Education recently heard a presentation from FGM Architects, which surveyed teachers on what they'd like to see in a high school expansion.

At the Dec. 15 school board meeting, FGM representative Jennifer Carlson presented the results of interviews with teachers throughout the high school on a spreadsheet, which was aimed at reflecting as many teacher requests as possible in future expansion plans. The departments included were administration, counseling, health services, all classroom subjects, labs, life skills in special ed, fine arts and some miscellaneous others.

Carlson said that while it is good the school offers a variety of different types of classes, this can have an impact on efficiency and therefore should be addressed. 

“You guys have a lot of outlier classes and it's not a bad thing, right?” Carlson said to the board. “It means that you are, you know, providing a lot of, you know, different types of classes to your student body. And that's great. But then that also means that your building becomes less efficient when you do that. Because you can have a building that could be used for seven periods a day but is only getting use for five, or something, because that class doesn't happen seven times a day.”

Part of the presentation showed the current square footage used by each department as well as what they anticipate will be needed in the future.

The board discussed the plan and the new information presented, acknowledging that teachers need more space to function better. Though expansion seems inevitable,  the current land lot is deemed suitable to easily accommodate absolute priorities.

Additionally, the school board discussed how predicting enrollment is difficult. While new houses have come into the district, the high school enrollment hasn’t shown much change. Other students also opt to go tor private schools.

“We are trying to plan for a future that is not exactly clear, but those will be our next puzzles to solve,” Superintendent Christopher Grode said.

Carlson agreed that accurate enrollment figures will help the board move forward with the necessary plans. While leaving the decision in the board's hands, she said studies show there could be as many as 942 students served with proposed renovations. 

The district will work with FGM Architects to create a plan.