Iowa City school officials continue work on facilities plan timeline

The Iowa City Community School District has again tweaked the timeline for implementing its facilities plan as it nears a final vote on the matter.

At a work session Tuesday night, the school board and district administrators discussed various aspects of the 10-year, $258 million plan that includes a new high school, three new elementary schools and renovations to existing schools.

The school board approved the plan last summer and has spent recent weeks debating where to slot the projects over the next decade.

The latest revisions from administrators are:

• Open a north elementary school in fall 2019, a year earlier than a previous proposal, and not have it serve as a temporary home for students whose school is being repaired.
• Finish Lincoln Elementary School upgrades a year earlier, in summer 2019.
• Send Lincoln and Mann elementary school students to a new east Iowa City school at the same time for one year.

School board members hope to vote on the timeline Dec. 10.

Tuyet Dorau and Chris Lynch have advocated for the north elementary school, which will be in North Liberty, to be built sooner to ease capacity concerns.

But other board members and Superintendent Stephen Murley said funding needs mean not every project can be high up in the timeline.

“Again, I'll reiterate, there are a  lot of compromises in the plan,” Murley said.

Voters may be asked in 2017 to approve a bond issue of up to $120 million to help pay for the projects.

Board members agreed that the plan could change over the next decade, but they intend for the current product to serve as a roadmap.

“We need to stay on path, and we need to potentially revisit where we are if we get detours,” Brian Kirschling said.

Hoover Elementary is scheduled to close in 2019 under the plan, a move that has angered Hoover parents. Dorau, who opposed that decision, asked board members to explain why the school should be shuttered.

“It's more efficient to operate larger buildings than small schools,” board President Sally Hoelscher said.

Administrators have said building new schools without closing what they consider less efficient ones would require cuts elsewhere.