Clark-Pleasant school leaders are choosing the most populated and growing area of the district to locate the sixth elementary school.
The new elementary, which will replicate the Center Grove elementary school currently under construction in size and design, will hold 750 students and help alleviate the crowding at Grassy Creek Elementary, Superintendent Patrick Spray told parents at the district’s community forum to talk about the plans. Another forum is planned for later this month.
The school will open in 2021 near Worthsville Road and Interstate 65, next to Grassy Creek Elementary and north of the middle school football field. Four new subdivisions are planned in the neighborhood, and nine subdivisions are planned for the school district, which is expected to continue the district’s enrollment climb.
“The bulk of our population is right here,” Spray said.
The largest growing student population in the district now is at the elementary level, Spray said, with about 3,000 elementary students currently enrolled and about 300 more expected to come in the next 10 years. Grassy Creek is at capacity with 920 students, making the school the largest elementary in the district, Spray said.
“That’s a really big elementary,” Spray said. “It’s bigger than what we would like in an elementary.”
Spray said portable classrooms will be most likely be used at Grassy Creek until the new elementary is complete, but are not planned for any other schools at this time.
The new school will have 45 classrooms, a gymnasium, cafeteria and kitchen, large group instruction room and space for offices and conference rooms for staff.
Clark-Pleasant is saving money by choosing a prototype building and also already owning the property for the school. The estimated cost is about $35 million, which includes construction, furniture and the necessary technology, Spray said. An extra $1 million will be needed annually for staffing, supplies and utilities.
“Some staff positions could move from a larger building like Grassy Creek provided the new building would take a couple of hundred students from that site,” Spray said.
The cost will be added on top of the already existing debt, which is going down, Spray said. The debt for the new building will eventually replace the current debt, which is expected to be paid off by 2029, according to data from the district.
Because the district is replacing old debt with new debt, the new building won’t affect property tax rates, Spray said.
“It would be like replacing one car payment with another,” he said.
The community had the opportunity to ask questions, and one topic was the future of the high school, where the increasing number of elementary students will eventually attend. Spray said the high school can add about 300 more students.
“That is not on the radar right now,” Spray said. “We have capacity at the high school with the two buildings.”
He also said that because all students are given laptops now at the middle school and high school, many computer labs can be turned into classroom space.
Redistricting is another task the school district will have to face when the new school is complete in 2021. The areas most affected will be at Grassy Creek and Pleasant Crossing elementary schools, where the population is the most dense, Spray said.
“We don’t like to redistrict. Nobody likes to redistrict, ever, but it’s necessary, especially in a growing school corporation,” Spray said.
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Next meeting
Clark-Pleasant will conduct a second community meeting to discuss the proposal for a new elementary school.
When: 6:30 p.m. Sept. 26
Where: Grassy Creek Elementary School, 2111 Sheek Road, Greenwood.
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