On May 29, 2019, RossTarrant Architects facilitated a leadership committee meeting with the primary purpose of organizing the community input session that will be held on June 6.
Date: 29 May 2019
Time: 4:00
Location: Woodford County Middle School
Overview Notes (official minutes will be linked below once approved)
Date: 29 May 2019
Time: 4:00
Location: Woodford County Middle School
Overview Notes (official minutes will be linked below once approved)
- There was nobody present at the meeting wishing to address the Steering Committee
- The Leadership Team discussed likes and dislikes about the current high school building:
- Highlights of positives of the current school centered around the highlighting of student achievements in common areas across the school such as the art display in the front lobby, ACT achievement banners, and trophy cases celebrating athletic and academic achievements.
- Dislikes were high in volume. Dislikes discussed at greatest need for change included safety issues; number of exterior doors, lack of natural light, tight corridors, poor restroom facilities, lack of flow and high number of isolated areas, outside aesthetic and outside traffic flow.
- Leadership Team discussed goals of the new school highlighted by discussion around safety, increased areas for collaboration, flexible, energy efficient, a secondary campus that is aesthetically pleasing to students and the community, 21st century learning needs addressed.
- Architects shared that a new high school would have intentional branding inside to ensure it is a place that celebrates students and the school pride felt across the community for Woodford County High School.
- The leadership team discussed options related to scheduling and how this effects the design of the high school. Multiple members discussed that the feedback from staff was a desire to have classroom space that remains the teacher's space during planning periods in lieu of flexible classrooms and teachers work stations outside the room.
- Discussion of organization included the financial reality that the board has approved the plan to move forward with the building of a high school with an initial budget of 35 million dollars, as approved at the May Regular Board of Education Meeting. This budget reality is that there will be decisions that need to be made in order to meet budget numbers. Examples included that it is more expensive to build a building where a quarter of the classrooms are used for planning periods at any one time as this requires more classrooms to be built to accommodate the number of students. Discussed that while this is possible there are necessary trade-offs in order to accommodate this. "Tradeoffs" could include an inability to have in the initial building plans: a theatre; competition gym; full CTE program; etc.
- Team discussed recognition of the financial reality but that in the current stage it is critical to keep in mind that the charge is to design a comprehensive high school campus for the future.
- Architects, Parent Representative Brenda Richards, and Mayor Traugott lead discussion on the goals and format of the community forum.
- The forum will be held June 6th, at 5:30, at Woodford County Middle School.
- The forum will allow the community the first of multiple opportunities to provide input on the design of a comprehensive high school campus and ask questions in small groups.
- Next meeting will be June 17, 2019. The meeting will be at 4:00 at Safe Harbor Academy.