Compromise Seems Likely On New School
Superintendent Says New Plan Will Satisfy Concerns
About The Gymnasium
A compromise in the mini-furor over the design of the new Commerce High School may be in the works.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. James E. “Mac” McCoy told the Commerce High School Council Monday night that officials “are very close to working out a compromise everybody would be happy with.”
McCoy was one of about 10 people, including students and parents, who sat in as the school council discussed the issue, listed their complaints or concerns and offered ideas they thought would resolve the issue.
At issue is the gymnasium. The original plan called for the contractor to build a new gym to completion, then demolish the existing gym and begin construction of the main facility. At the last minute, that plan changed as the architects told the school board it could save up to $1.5 million by demolishing the gym and building the school all at once.
The problem was that the school would be without a gym for 12 to 24 months in the new scheme.
“The board did hear (the complaints),” McCoy said. “They listened and they asked me to try to make things work.”
There had been speculation that the school council would draft a letter to the board of education opposing the plan. Instead, on a motion by Joe Leffew, the council voted 4-0 to have member Dr. Carlton Allen draft a letter to the board supporting McCoy’s efforts and insisting that the board “involve the people from this point forward.”
The first portion of the meeting was devoted to members’ concerns, which appeared to be split between the architects and the issue with the gym.
But member Joe Leffew went so far as to draw a schematic for a new, larger school he said would require no demolition of any existing structures, mostly by building on the back side of the school property, and could be built in a single phase.
“Can you do it without disturbing the students?” Leffew asked. “I say, yes you can, without disturbing the students or the faculty or the staff or the facility. Yeah we can, we can build it on the back and on the side and have a much bigger school than is currently planned ... faster, cheaper and better than what is currently on the plan.”
Allen pressed McCoy on whether the architects offered any other scenarios, and the superintendent replied that the company took input from teachers and followed a board mandate “not to build something that in 50 years will look like it was built around something else.”
Allen asked why other architectural firms were not considered, and McCoy replied, “Money,” saying they did not stay within the board’s budget with their proposals.
That exchange led Allen and Chairman Bill Sims to both suggest that the school system had been “baited” with a promise of a school within a budget, only to later be told that it would take a rearrangement of the construction process to meet that budget.
“My real concern with the firm based on their presentation was that they did not seem well-prepared,” Allen said. Leffew had made a similar observation.
Sims agreed, saying that during the March 24 presentation to the school board, the architect presented nothing done to scale.
Sims also told McCoy that had the public been told the school board needed more money to build the school, the board could have passed a larger bond issue.
“You could have asked for $25 or $30 million and they would have voted for it,” he said.
“I do feel like I’ve been baited,” he added. “We were told one thing, then given another.”
Former BOE member Keith Massey criticized the school board for its failure to work with city officials for a joint bond issue to build “the kind of facility we want,” and said it was time for the BOE to get over its political differences with the city council. He also suggested that the design should have been more “green,” or environmentally friendly.
Massey faulted the design for taking up part of the CHS practice field, which could bump some recreation teams to another site.
Jennifer Sanders expressed the opinion that the board and its architects “haven’t looked at all the angles, and they’re telling us there are no other options.” She called the loss of a gym for one to two years “a major disruption to a lot of lives.”
Members voting for Leffew’s motion included Sims, Leffew, Allen and Sonny Austin. Members Kay Haugen and Donnie Drew, both employed at CHS, abstained.
For his part, McCoy said he found the meeting helpful.
“I think it was important for the group to understand that the board heard their concerns and is working toward a solution,” he said later. “The issue is displacement of the kids, and I think we have a solution to that.”
