Tyler

By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer

The principals of Mattie Jones Elementary and the St. Louis School spoke favorably to Tyler ISD trustees Thursday night about the idea of combining their two schools into one facility as part of the district's Nov. 4 bond election.

Under the current $124.9 million bond proposal, six campuses would be replaced. Those campuses include Clarkston, Griffin, Orr, Jones and Woods elementary schools, as well as the St. Louis School for students with special needs.

TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said he has discussed the idea of a joint Jones and St. Louis with groups from both school communities.

"First and foremost, the primary reason that we've considered it is to better reach the needs of the children in TISD," he told trustees. "For me, that's both the children at the St. Louis campus as well as the children at the Jones campus.

"We believe that due to the fact that the federal laws require us to meet the needs of our special needs children in the least restrictive environment, that we might have difficulty continuing to do that as we move forward at a facility that is only special needs children," Reid said of St. Louis. "Many times special needs children need engagement and interaction with children that aren't special needs."

He said that, in many cases now, students from St. Louis are being taken to another campus to get that interaction.

"We believe this will provide us with an opportunity to make that more readily accessible," he said. "We also know that the actions, the programs, taking place at the St. Louis campus are absolutely wonderful activities for our kids that are there. One of things that we have stressed over and over again (is)� in no way do we intend to reduce any services to the children at the St. Louis campus with any kind of move that we make.

"If we thought we would be reducing services, we wouldn't recommend this. If anything, we expect newer opportunities in addition to the ones that currently exist that might be created."

For Jones students, the combination, he said would give them the opportunity to interact with children with differences.

"We think that is a great point of growth for all the children in TISD," he said. "We see from an academic standpoint, from a programmatic standpoint, that this could be a win-win for both campuses."

Combining the two schools and building one facility instead of two would also cut down on costs, he said.

Reid said the most expensive square footage when building a new facility is the kitchen, and one kitchen could be built by joining the two campuses.

"It's not just about saving the kitchen, but that's a good example," he said. "We can serve children from one cafeteria, and save construction costs. There may be recreational facilities that we can build, there's common areas and corridor spaces that you can save when you build � one facility."

He said, though, at the same time they want to provide the same safety and security measures they currently have.

"We know that interaction is not always what we want," he said. "So we would make sure that we control the accessibility from one area of the building to the other."

Another opportunity for savings is in personnel, he said, quickly noting he was not talking about teachers or instructional staff. He said it might be in office, library or custodial staffs.

"We've had excellent questions asked from both groups," he said of St. Louis and Jones, noting he has asked the groups if they could support the idea and he said he has yet to have anyone say they could not.

Reid invited individuals with concerns or questions to call or e-mail the district or talk with the principals of Jones and St. Louis.

Patricia Lewis, principal of Jones, said she was impressed by comments she heard from her parents when they met to discuss the issue.

"One of the comments that one of my parents said, he stood up and said, 'I think we would do our students a favor by allowing them the experience to be around these other students that have special needs if it would give them an opportunity to have an appreciation for students that are different from us. In society we deal with that all that time �,'" Ms. Lewis said.

Karyn Hacker, principal of St. Louis, said she was at first conflicted about the idea, but she said she sees a lot of benefits to it, particularly for elementary students to have interactions. Questions about security issues for older students have been answered, she said.

"I think everybody's feeling really good and really excited and hopeful," Ms. Hacker said. "We're looking at it like we're a family at St. Louis and when a family moves to a new house, you're just moving to a new house, you're still a family."

Ms. Lewis said the district's vision this year is "One Passion, One Purpose."

"We have taken that to the next step in saying, every child, every opportunity, every day," Ms. Lewis said. "And that's exactly what we want to provide, whether it's the students at Jones, the students at St. Louis. We're just going to open our arms and serve children because we are Tyler ISD."

The superintendent said earlier this week that if TISD were to choose to combine the schools, the administration would propose the St. Louis School facility on Walton Drive remain and retain its name, but the program for students with special needs would become a wing of a new Jones Elementary facility.

The administration would recommend the wing retain the Wayne D. Boshears name, he has said. The school for students with special needs is currently called the St. Louis School-Wayne D. Boshears Center for Exceptional Programs.

Reid noted that, ultimately, the decision about the names would come from the board.

He also said they would recommend the board use the existing St. Louis facility, with some minor modifications, as a Head Start/Pre-K center.

"We are desperately in need of space for Head Start and Pre-K centers in Tyler," Reid said at the meeting. "We have a number of children who qualify for Head Start and Pre-K programs that we cannot currently offer opportunities to because they have limited space."

Mandatory programs have to be offered first, he said, and Head Start and Pre-K are not mandatory.

"We think there's a lot of positive in this possibility," he said, noting there is no intention to sell the St. Louis property and there's been no discussion of that. "We need the facility."

After the meeting, when asked what the next step is, Reid said, "I'm going to continue to have dialogue with the community � We're welcoming questions � I'm very hopeful that if there's anything out there that would make this a bad idea that somebody will help it come to light. At this point, we still perceive it to be a good option."

He said that, at the October board meeting, the administration will likely propose an action item for the board to vote on whether to combine the two schools.

During the public participation period on this issue, Jim Haire urged board members to "remember the students are the top priority" and to not let an attempt to save costs negatively affect students.

Also Thursday, trustees approved the architectural and engineering contracts for schools proposed as part of the Nov. 4 bond program.

Under the contracts, Eubanks-Harris-Roberts-Craig will be the firm for Clarkston, Griffin, Orr and Woods elementary schools, while the combination firm team of Corgan/Sinclair & Wright Architects would be the architects for Jones and the St. Louis School.

The approval of the contracts makes it possible for the design processes to begin.

Reid said the first things the architects do are preliminary and include meetings with campus and district staff. He does not anticipate the designs will be complete by the election date.

The architects may also begin to put together a staging plan for how the district would, for example, move portables or deal with parking at those sites where the current facility will remain as a new facility is built, Reid has said.

He said they would share the design work with the public at the appropriate time.

Reid has said before and reiterated Thursday that the district moving forward with these contracts in no way should be perceived as the district assuming the election is wrapped up.

"This is not evidence that we feel that the bond election is something that is a foregone conclusion," he said. "We believe we're working with a time clock, and that every month that we delay the bidding process costs us at least one percent on the cost of these buildings. We think it's the prudent thing for us to do to begin to accomplish as much work as we can."

He also said the work would not be in vain if the bond fails because it could be used at a later date.

About $2 million in savings from the 2004 bond will be used for these architectural and engineering services.

"We have money in the bank to do the services on the front end that will hopefully help us save money in the long run," Reid said.

He also noted there is the possibility of using prototypes of facilities from the 2004 bond and saving money through doing that.

The board also approved choosing its 2008 bond delivery method as the "construction management at-risk" method, which is what it used in the 2004 bond and what Reid has called, "the most used method" especially for districts the size of TISD. Reid said this approval will allow the district only to put a request for qualifications out there, but that they would not hire anyone until after the bond election, if it passes.

Also Thursday, the board authorized Reid to negotiate real estate contracts for properties for new school locations with any such contract contingent on final approval by the board at a later date.