Moline school facilities decision will not be made in near future
Families in the Moline-Coal Valley School District won’t know the fate of their school buildings any time soon.
Moline school board members decided this week that their first step in deciding what to do with the district’s aging and underutilized buildings will involve hiring a design firm to put cost estimates on proposed restructuring scenarios. From there, they will hold meetings with residents to gather their feedback before beginning the process of whittling their list to a final plan.
Board members said they haven’t set a formal timeline for when they hope to complete their work. But Darryl Snyder, Moline’s director of facilities, said it will take 30 to 45 days just to hire a company to provide cost estimates. He expects the board to start making some final decisions regarding the future of Moline’s 13 elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school within the next school year.
However, it could be a decade before those plans are fully implemented, Snyder said.
“This is a process,” he said. “Putting together or adopting a long-term plan is not something that is going to happen overnight. Anything we are talking about here will be years in the making.”
It took a committee of parents, district staff and community members almost two years to develop a list of four restructuring options, which the committee presented to the board last month. Those scenarios range from maintaining the status quo to opening three elementary schools with 1,000-plus students, combining John Deere and Wilson middle schools into one building and closing 10 schools, an option that is favored by the
committee.
Specifically, the recommendations include:
n Converting Wilson, John Deere and the Coolidge building into three nine-section elementary schools, meaning they would have nine classrooms for each grade. Bicentennial would continue to serve Coal Valley children, and middle school students would either move to the high school or a new middle school.
n Maintaining Moline High School and the two middle schools and converting Coolidge into a seven-section elementary school. Bicentennial would become a two-section elementary school, while Butterworth, Hamilton and Washington elementary schools, Jefferson Early Childhood Center and a new school built in the Stephens Park area would serve as four-section
elementary schools with an estimated 480 students.
n Maintaining the high school and middle schools and converting Coolidge into a seven-section elementary school. Bicentennial and Hamilton elementary schools and a new elementary school built in the Stephens Park area would become four-section elementary buildings, and five-section elementary schools would go into the Butterworth Elementary School and Jefferson Early Childhood Center buildings.
n Doing nothing and maintaining the district’s current configuration of schools.
Board members said all of the scenarios will remain on the table until they have cost estimates. However, Snyder said it was his understanding that the board plans to narrow the list while the district works to hire a design firm. It was unclear whether board members plan to get public input before selecting several scenarios or after they have a refined list with price tags, he said.
“It’s a long-term process and where we go hasn’t really been decided,” said James Kopel, board member. “All of these things take some time, and sometimes that is a concern to the public. They wonder why it is taking so much time. It just does. It’s not something that is done in 24 or 48 hours.”
Sheena Dooley can be contacted at (563) 383-2363 or sdooley@qctimes.com.
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