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As enrollment dips, building strategy waits.
As enrollment dips, building strategy waits.
By TONY LANGE
The Solon School District's strategic planning committee action team recommended not taking immediate action regarding building reconfigurations, and the school board unanimously adopted the plan last week.
Five consecutive years of declining student enrollment spurred more than 60 parents, residents and school staff members to review and discuss the most efficient and effective use of school buildings at several meetings, which began last October.
With just more than 5,000 students currently attending school in the district, Solon has seven academic buildings with a combined capacity of 5,800.
The conclusion of the action team essentially was not to do anything, School Superintendent Joseph V. Regano said.
"They reflected about how the changes in our community are not yet done," Mr. Regano said. "What more is going to change? What is the mortgage crisis going to do with families moving in and out of Solon? And does the continual draw of the district mitigate some of the negative factors in terms of movement?"
Instead of making a prompt decision, the action team advised the board to consider and adopt seven key points that would help establish future motions.
Within the points, two triggers were set.
First, should future kindergarten enrollment be at 275 or fewer students for two consecutive years, the study of efficient building use will be reopened. Therefore, no building changes would be made until the 2014-15 school year at the earliest.
Second, should the district's financial status take a downward dip, the process of building closure-consolidation-re-purposing could reopen immediately.
"I think the strategic planning group was saying to the community, look, we have these triggers that are built in, but if all of the sudden $10 million disappears, don't be surprised if the board has to go back and make some decisions that fall outside these parameters," Mr. Regano said.
The two-year kindergarten trigger will allow additional time to collect data on incoming class sizes, economic recovery and housing turnover, said Tamara Strom, director of communication services for the district.
The declining enrollment figures are largely attributed to the graduation of high-enrollment "bubble classes," Mrs. Strom said. The graduating class of 2011 had 472 students, while this year's kindergarten class has just 256, she said.
"That was a time when Solon was growing at such a rapid rate, when communities and residential areas such as Signature, the Preserve, Chagrin Highlands, all those types of neighborhoods were being built up pretty quickly," Mrs. Strom said about the 1990s. "Solon is now a mature community. So people who moved here in the '90s have kids who are graduating. And they are not rushing, just because their kids are moving out of school, to move out of Solon. So the saturation of the community has stabilized."
Future decisions regarding building use, however, need to remain flexible in case enrollment trends reverse, according the action team's report.
Action team members also recommended that the district balance financial needs with a continued commitment to academic excellence.
The short way of saying it is, don't sell out dollars for academic results, Mr. Regano said.
"At some point, though, those lines cross in terms of academic performance and saving dollars, and they want us to be able to hit that at the right spot," Mr. Regano said.
Retaining current average class sizes and program equity district-wide also were among the seven points in the report.
Margo Morrow, who was nominated and approved as Solon School Board president for the next year, said one of the major pluses of the strategic plan is that it came from a large group of people who wished to be involved.
New board member and former Solon Mayor Kevin Patton echoed that comment. "It was a very impressive and involved process. I thought it was a very effective and necessary process," he said. "There's an old saying that, if you don't know where you are going, then how will you know when you get there? And believe me, the Solon schools know where they're going."
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