Is the largest expense on Beaufort Co. school bond referendum a sign of school closings?
In the discussions leading up to the recent approval of Beaufort County School District’s $345 million November bond referendum, the threat of school consolidation has been the “elephant in the room,” according to school board member William Smith, who used the term at Tuesday’s regular meeting of the board.
School consolidation would entail closing a school and having its students and staff moved to other nearby schools in the district. Any consideration of consolidation would likely affect schools north of the Broad River, many of which are under capacity.
The largest expense on the $345 million referendum is to demolish the current Robert Smalls International Academy to build a new campus. The estimated cost of this project is $71 million, and the plan calls for adding 30,000 square feet to the campus, making it approximately 175,000 square feet.
“It sounds like we’re building schools big enough so that — we won’t say it out loud because it may tick people off — but what we will do is build them big enough so that when we’re ready to make a decision (on consolidation), we have the room there,” Smith said at the meeting.
Of the district’s 30 schools, 10 are under 70 percent capacity, and all 10 are north of the Broad River. Robert Smalls International Academy is among those schools, at 66 percent capacity.
But claims that the school’s renovation is designed with consolidation in mind are unfounded, district chief operations officer Robert Oetting said.
“On a square-foot basis, it’s propositioned larger than it is now,” Oetting said of the design.
But this is due to the current building’s smaller-than-average classrooms, he said. The district is interested in “right-sizing” the school, scaling it to meet modern size standards by having a smaller number of larger classrooms, he said. There are 718 students enrolled at the school now, in a campus that can hold 1,087. The new school’s capacity would be 800 students.
“I’d say there might be a slight misunderstanding of the plan for Robert Smalls International Academy,” Oetting said.
However, consolidation isn’t off the table in the district’s future, according to minutes from referendum committee.
“There was some conversation about that. But Robert Oetting made it clear that would take many years,” community activist and referendum committee member Richard Bisi said. “I thought discussion of where we spend money — that conversation should take place with consolidation.”
Another school that was considered for right-sizing during committee talks was Lady’s Island Middle School, which is at 49 percent capacity and not using its second floor. But Oetting said that interim superintendent Herb Berg recommended holding off on that conversation until the next referendum, and including it in discussions of consolidation.
The years in which consolidation could be discussed may be limited, board member JoAnn Orischak said, as many of the board’s current members are up for re-election in 2022.
“Nobody wants to tackle consolidation in a re-election year,” said Orischak, who is up for re-election in 2020, at Tuesday’s board meeting. “Old school closures are like pulling teeth.”
The last time a school closed in the district was 2012, when the school board voted 6-5 to close Shell Point Elementary School. Oetting, who led the physical closing of the school but not the decision to close, said that he had to be careful not to upset the community during the process.
Oetting said that any future school consolidations would likely take between 18 months and two years, and include another community committee to shepherd the process.
“Any time you start talking about closing a school, it has a huge impact on the community,” he said.
Capacities at Beaufort County schools
Data presented to the school district’s community referendum committee in March shows that 10 of the district’s 30 schools are under 70 percent capacity, while nine are at or above 90 percent capacity.
This story was originally published June 23, 2019 at 12:53 PM.