Madison Elementary parents voice worries about school plan

CEDAR RAPIDS — Parents and residents in the Madison Elementary School attendance zone have concerns about how a proposed facility plan will impact their children and their northwest quadrant neighborhood.

A focus group recommended in a 7-4 confidential vote to the Cedar Rapids school board Monday a plan to renovate and build a 50,000-square-foot addition to Harrison Elementary School — almost doubling the space. Madison Elementary would then be closed and the schools’ attendance zones combined.

The other option under consideration is building a new school on site of Madison Elementary School, 1341 Woodside Dr. NW, and selling Harrison Elementary.

The cost to renovate and build an addition at Harrison Elementary, 1310 11th St. NW, is an estimated $29.9 million. Building a new school on the site of Madison is estimated to cost $28.4 million.

The decision was based on an assessment of both schools from Legat Architects, an architecture firm in Iowa City. Construction could start as early as March 2024.

The district held a community meeting Wednesday to get feedback on the plan. Superintendent Tawana Grover, school board President David Tominsky and members Nancy Humbles and Jennifer Borcherding joined about 40 people at the meeting.

Jessica Tiernan, who has a child at Madison, said she came to “fight for our school and neighborhood.”

Andrea Lamont left the meeting feeling like officials have “already made their decision, even though it’s going to be $1.5 million more.” Her fourth and youngest child is a student at Madison. Over the years, she’s enjoyed the “small community” feel of the school where she and her kids have felt “safe and comfortable.”

Vanessa Vega, who went to Madison and now has children at the school, said fewer students would be impacted and misplaced during construction if the district built a new school at the Madison site. “It would be less money and less work,” she said.

“This was not an information session,” Vega said, “it was a persuasion session.”

Jon Galbraith, Cedar Rapids schools’ director of operations, said if the school board moves forward with renovating Harrison, students might need to be vacated from the school during construction. Options include bringing temporary classrooms to the site or temporarily sending kids to other schools, such as Madison and Maple Grove Elementary School. No decisions have been made.

In K-5, there are about 185 students at Madison and 338 students at Harrison.

Mark Stoffer Hunter, a historian and a member of the focus group, is in favor of renovating Harrison Elementary over building a new school at Madison.

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Stoffer Hunter said “geography” is likely to work against Madison, since it is closer in proximity to Maple Grove, which was the second school to open under the current elementary facility elementary plan. It replaced Jackson Elementary. Madison and Maple Grove are one mile apart. Harrison is 2.7 miles from Maple Grove.

Many people who attended the meeting voiced concerns that it was a “conflict of interest” for members of the Cedar Rapids Historical Society to be on the focus group.

Harrison is one of seven schools in Cedar Rapids built before World War II, opening in 1930, Stoffer Hunter said. In the school there is a mural painted by a William Henning, a contemporary of Grant Wood, who is known for his depictions of the rural Midwest. School officials have said that mural will be preserved regardless of where the next school is built.

If Harrison is renovated, the historic architecture will be preserved but “when you walk through those doors, it will be in to a modern learning environment,” Galbraith said.

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While the new elementary school will be bigger than either the current Madison or Harrison, it would not increase class sizes. Larger elementary schools mean more sections of each grade, which helps schools avoid combining grades — such as combining a first and second grade class in to one classroom — and isolating teachers.

Students will learn in “pods” organized by grade level — a group of classrooms with a common area for them to gather or do group work.

This would be the fourth new elementary school built under a 2018 facilities master plan that calls for 10 new elementary schools and three renovated ones over the next 15 to 20 years. This process includes the closure and repurposing of eight schools.

New elementary schools are expected to decrease operational costs for the district and address uneven distribution of resources. The work has been funded by SAVE — Secure an Advanced Vision for Education — an existing statewide sales tax.

A second meeting to share recommendations for the future of Harrison and Madison and to gather information from the community was scheduled for Thursday night at Harrison.

The Cedar Rapids school board is expected to make a decision about the projects at its meeting that starts at 5:30 p.m. April 24 at the Educational Leadership and Support Center, 2500 Edgewood Rd NW.

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com