A video of the high school task force meeting that was held at the Ravina/Home Park Neighborhood Association meeting is available on the association’s Web site.  The video is about 20 minutes in length but the actual discussion was an hour long.  I don’t think I have to worry about being nominated for an Emmy for my lousy videography skills but it’s still an important discussion to listen to.  Many points that many are making in the community were brought up.  Thanks to the Decatur School District for being so willing and eager to come speak to our small group!

The High School Task Force is now in Phase 2 in its process to select the best option for upgrading Decatur’s two high schools.  You can weight in online by clicking here.   Four options were recently presented to the school board:  renovating both high schools and building a new tech academy; building a single new high school with the tech academy on campus; converting Stephen Decatur Middle School back into a high school;   or the “do nothing option”.  There’s a Powerpoint and video presentation on the  school district’s Website here detailing each plan.

I didn’t choose any of the four options.  I participated in phase 1 of the task force meetings and saw many of the plans.  There were pluses and minuses for each.  However, after thinking about it, I really think the best option (which doesn’t equal the cheapest) would be to renovate Stephen Decatur and convert it back into a high school, demolish Eisenhower and rebuild it and convert MacArthur High School into a junior high.

To me, it makes the most sense geographically to have a high school on both the north and south sides of town.  It also makes sense to have our two junior high buildings on the east and the west.  Busing kids from South Shores up to Stephen Decatur, which is on the northern edge of town, would be less than ideal.  A single high school for a city the size of Decatur isn’t in my opinion a good option.  I think it would limit our growth potential and reflect poorly on the community.  It would be a major turn-off to many parents and prospective residents moving into the area.

According to the engineers during Phase 1, students could continue attending Stephen Decatur while the remodeling was taking place; however, an issue to work out  is what do we do with the students at Eisenhower when they’re building is being rebuilt?  It would be impossible to completely rebuild a new high school during the summer months.