Building Plan Thoughts

We've been having meetings of late to discuss the possibility of undertaking a building project, the first phase of which would be an elementary school.  I was gone when the first meeting at our church took place and partly got up to speed on what was being proposed at the joint meeting this past Wednesday.  I went feeling fairly ambivalent about what I wanted to have happen, and left feeling much the same way.  In the past 24 hours some things have floated to the top of my sensibilities, however, and here's what I'm thinking now.  (Feel free to skip the rest if this subject doesn't interest you.)

I really, really do not see that we need a big community building as part of the building plan in any phase.  Until now I saw it as a way to redeem the expense of putting up a gym for the school children to play in.  But here's the thing:  the grade school teachers are not feeling the need for a gym at all, and it's a grade school we're talking of building now.  The teachers like having the children play outside during recess, and the weather usually cooperates.  On the rare days when it doesn't, the church basement or the classroom areas can serve as temporary play areas.  This begins to look like building a school is merely an excuse for getting a community building.  I'm not OK with this.

I'd like to see the two ideas totally separated.  If in the distant future a community building is needed, let it be revisited and let it happen at a site different from the school, and let it work well as a community building, instead of  complicating and "overkilling" the school site.  A well-equipped kitchen would need to be part of the plan if the community building became a wedding reception hall.  Such a kitchen, however,  would be largely wasted in a school building.  A huge parking area is needed at a reception hall--again, superfluous at a school site.  In the meantime, outside school hours, other local facilities could be used as play spaces, reception halls,  and program spaces just as they are being used now.

The Dean Road property seems more ideal for a community building than a school for various reasons.  Factors that were mentioned the other night at the joint meeting were the presence of the two pipelines underground that dictate a rather odd building placement on the lot, and its slightly audacious proximity (basically across the road) to the public grade school we pulled out of when we stated our own school.  That seems like a rude gesture to some of our members.  Others mentioned the disadvantage of Dean Road being a dirt road.

I seriously doubt that this is on the radar for most people, but I have always mourned the fact that the Dean Road property is so utterly devoid of an interesting natural environment.  It's shoe-horned in among developed properties, except to the south, where there is an open field--flat, cultivated, and featureless.  I really pity children who have to spend so much of their time in such a place.  Writers and researchers make a compelling case for how "nature deficit disorder" hinders learning, motivation, and productivity.  Why, if we can do better than this for our children, don't we try?

Another parallel development begs consideration.  Earlier, at the time a vote was taken that resulted in the purchase of the Dean Road property, the Partridge Road property (1/2 mile north of Partridge, also known as the Moyer property) was considered, but was not for sale.  So that option didn't make the ballot, as I recall.  Since then the 80-acre parcel of which the possible school site was a part came up for sale and was purchased by someone from our church.  Plans are being made for use of part of the property, but, to my knowledge, no construction is planned for the NW corner, where there are about six (or is it 8?) acres that could be used.  All 80 acres is in CRP presently, except for the farm buildings.  A usually-dry creek bed is located along the back of the possible building site.  It's a wonderfully diverse natural environment with grassland, trees, and a waterway, offering a plethora of learning opportunities, and having the potential to marvelously enrich the experience of institutionalized schooling.

The acreage referenced is the part of that area of the property that is outside the flood plain.  In other words, there's a lot more land there, but some of it is in a flood plain, where construction is not allowed.

Did I mention that it's on a paved road--farther away from the noise of trains and highway traffic than the Dean Road property?  A state route and a US route are within a half mile of this site, providing stellar access from all directions.  It's slightly south and west of the Dean Road site.  More church people, of late, have moved farther west, both to the north and to the south.  People who have always lived in the Pleasantview area may regard this "Wild West" as part of the boondocks, but they might consider that Partridge was on the map long before Pleasantview was.  It's been settled and civilized for a long time now, in fact.

I haven't inquired whether the current landowner of the Partridge Road property would be willing to sell off a corner for the school.  I do know that he offered another property earlier for this purpose.

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that a walkout basement would be possible on the potential school building site on Partridge Road.  If so, it would open up some real cost savings potential, with two stories under one roof.  For example, two levels could be handicap accessible because they could both have ground level entrances.  One level could house an elementary school and the other level a high school.  That would provide an ideal combination of proximity and separation for the two age groups, in my opinion.  One level could, for now, house a grade school and the other level could be an indoor play area.

Right now, a funeral at Center or Cedar Crest sometimes calls for an interruption of school because each church building also houses a school.  However, if the schools were moved out of the churches, that would cease to be an issue.  Thus a community building seems unnecessary for having funerals--or is it the meal afterward that people are concerned about?  The overflow areas in the churches would need to do double duty as seating areas during the funeral and eating areas during the meal.  That happens regularly at Cedar Crest and Arlington now, and I don't know why it couldn't continue.

For what it's worth, no one on staff at the high school is clamoring for a new facility.  We can all see that there would be some good things about having the high school and grade school on the same campus, but we feel well-provided for in the facility we have.  One advantage of a combined facility would be the convenience it would offer families with students at both schools, and for possible teacher's aide help from high school students working at the grade school.  Also, we have several teachers with responsibilities at both places, and they could save road time if both schools were at the same place.  Administration and work areas and equipment for teachers could be streamlined in one location instead of two.  I'm not sure, however, that it would be easy to quantify the financial advantages of having everything in one place.  On the downside, we'd be adding an enormous number of square feet to our heating and cooling obligations.  What is simply paid now as part of the church expenses would have to be covered by a different mechanism.

A number of years ago, I did some advocating for the Partridge Road site, but I saw that it was an impossibility at that time and had largely put it out of my mind, and had begun to try to imagine what could be developed at the Dean Road site.  It's only in the past day or so that I realized that the circumstances really had changed enough that Partridge Road might be a possibility now.  Also, the unease I felt vaguely about a community building has crystallized for me recently, and I'm wondering by what logic it makes sense to anyone.

Comments, anyone?