FARGO (KFGO) – As the Fargo Public Schools District considers options for major capital projects in the next five to 15 years and the window for public feedback on the plan is slated to close next week, some community members are expressing concerns about aspects of the plan and the way it is being communicated.
District officials and Long-Range Facility Planning (LRFP) steering committee members hosted town hall-type meetings at the District’s high schools last week, and a survey is still available for any interested community member to provide feedback on potential reconfigurations, consolidations, rebuilds, and renovations at Fargo schools. The last day to fill out the survey is Wednesday, January 24. It can be found here.
Significant changes are proposed for the elementary and middle schools located in the north and central areas of the District in the plan.
On the north side, the plan calls for the closure of Madison, Roosevelt, and Horace Mann elementary schools. The three would be consolidated at a new school to be built on the site of Ben Franklin Middle School. The current Ben Franklin building would be demolished and moved to the current site of Washington elementary school. Washington would be consolidated with McKinley elementary school, which would be rebuilt to accommodate more students.
In central Fargo, Jefferson and Lewis & Clark elementary schools would be closed and consolidated at a new school in the building that currently houses Carl Ben Eielson Middle School, which would relocate to a new school to be built on the Lewis & Clark site. Hawthorne K-2 elementary school would be closed and merged with Clara Barton, which is a grades 3-5 elementary school, but not before the current Clara Barton building is torn down and rebuilt.
Buildings that currently house the schools slated to be closed would be reused or repurposed, according to the plan.
The facilities plan was initially presented to the public as three options – one that would have focused on fixing the conditions needs at existing buildings, another that addressed conditions needs as well as what the District called educational inadequacies at existing schools, and a final option that included conditions upgrades as well as the north and central Fargo school closures, rebuilds, and consolidations – but District officials clarified at last week’s town halls that there is just one plan being considered at this time, which prompted some to express concerns about how the plan is being communicated.
Emily Schwartz, whose children are in the Fargo North feeder system, said she is concerned with the timeline in which the public is being given opportunity to discuss the plan.
“Up until last week we were under the impression that there were three options to consider and have since learned that there is only one option being promoted, with significant cost and impact to families,” she said.
Heather Johnson is a member of the LRFP steering committee and a parent of young children in the Fargo South High feeder system. She said her primary concerns about the plan have to do with its physical scope, cost, and emotional impact.
“This is more than just a financial decision. We need to appreciate how these decisions will affect the student experience, and our whole community. No option should be considered if it is not a “trade-up” option,” Johnson said.
Fargo Superintendent Dr. Rupak Gandhi told an F-M Chamber audience this week that only a small amount of plan’s cost might need to go to a vote in Fargo.
“The price tags that are being reported are for these different options we’re considering for the future of facilities in our public schools. That does not mean that’s the price tag we’ll be asking voters to approve,” Gandhi said Tuesday morning.
“The bonding agencies that we work with will assess the financial capacity of the District, what outstanding debt we may have, and phase out the plan – because this is really a 15-year plan – and then determine: is there a gap in what the district can afford versus the phase in which we want to execute that timeline? And if so, then do we need to go to the voters and for how much? That amount could be a very small fraction of the overall price tag, or it could just be for one phase of maybe three different phases over 15 years. We’re going through an iterative process of drafting and changing and getting community feedback…so it’s just a little too early to tell,” Gandhi said.
Fargo School Board policy states the funding of any new construction project utilizing the District’s building authority and paid out of the FPS General Fund needs to be approved by a majority of the District’s voters.
The current timeline for the plan’s approval shows that once the public feedback period ends, the Steering Committee will consider the comments and put forward another draft and enter into conversations with the School Board and focus groups of the most impacted communities in February, then make a formal presentation of a new and final draft plan to the Board at the end of March, with an anticipated vote on the plan by the Board in early April.
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