U.D. schools facilities update includes options for board

UPPER DARBY » More than two dozen scenarios have been generated on how to provide the most adequate learning spaces for elementary students in Upper Darby in the most thorough update yet on the districtwide facilities study.

Assistant Superintendent Dan McGarry presented to the school board and public at a July 25 meeting a vague outline of 30 scenarios on how to accommodate approximately 6,000 students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade in their facilities. Enrollment and building capacities are key parts of the facilities study that will determine the prospect of building a new elementary school and/or administration building in the district.

In the mildly complicated presentation, each elementary school’s boundary areas were broken down into segments called neighborhood planning units which helps the district see the total number of males, females, regular education and special education students reside in a portion of a boundary. These segments can easily be plugged into another school’s boundary, if necessary, to see how that could affect that a school’s enrollment numbers.

Over 50 units were created by a contracted demographer, but boundary lines were not manipulated.

The total enrollment units, the number of special education students in a unit and previously approved elementary education specifications (number of students per grade classroom) were used as the three guiding principles from which the 30 scenarios were derived. When applying which principle would be used - presumably per school, which were not named with each scenario - any one of the following options were a possibility: additions/alterations to the buildings; a new school in the Cardington section; a new school on Marshall Road; making the Kindergarten Center and elementary school (without any changes to Aronimink); or none of the above.

For example, scenario 10 shows that if opting to keep all students in their neighborhood schools with current boundaries, building a new school on Marshall Road would be the best solution.

Only scenarios one, two and three yielded no solutions for any alterations or new building construction, but options 25 through 30 yielded three of four possible solutions.

For all of the scenarios the following assumptions were built in: All district elementary buildings (minus Walter M. Senkow) will be used; the Kindergarten Center will be utilized as a kindergarten through fifth-grade building; half-day kindergarten classes will be housed in the neighborhood elementary school; no modular units will be used; and space capacity will be configured based on the district’s education specifications.

McGarry did not speak at length about any of the scenarios considering their mild complexity and the time needed to explain each one, but he did say that a new elementary school was inevitable. He did advise the board to whittle down the scenarios to at least 10 before the Aug. 22 board committee meetings, adding that if they would like to keep classrooms per their approved specifications, it would only leave 10 scenarios left anyway (using the elementary education specifications principle). Four was another suggested number of scenarios to bring forward.

Pete Medica of the district’s architect-of-record Bonnett Associates Inc., said full variations on five to 15 scenarios would be out of the scope of the work the firm was contracted for. Bonnett has received approximately $120,000 in contracts to complete the facilities study since March 2016. Another $26,000 was spent to hire a demographer.

There’s no word on when the full study will be completed.