An Analysis of Windham Schools - Part 1

Windham School District Capacities

2,840 vs. 2,098 vs. 3,200+  

This is the first in a series of articles that will analyze the needs of our school district, using the facts and figures that have been previously presented to the public by the Windham School Board.  The goal of this series is to raise public awareness, encourage public discussion, and to share different perspectives and solutions to our problems.

Armed with the information this series will attempt to provide, it is hoped that we will then have the knowledge and desire to join together and solve our problems as a community -- and continue to strive to provide for the best educational opportunities for our children.  Some of the issues that will be discussed are; school capacities, enrollment projections, class sizes, overcrowding, student:teacher ratios, budgets, the lack of an approved Middle School, and the School Board's proposed solutions/costs.

All of these issues are intertwined, and contribute to our problems and potential solutions.  We face difficult challenges, and there will be different perspectives on how to interpret those challenges, as well as what each of us considers to be the proper solutions.  This series will seek to present all information with a high level of respect and encourage all of us to work together towards what is in the best interest of our community.

With so much to consider, each article in this series will focus predominantly on one issue at a time.  This article will discuss the capacities of our schools, the different methods the School Board has used to determine those capacities, and which method should/must be used to accurately define our educational capacities.

In 2009 and earlier, it appears the School Board used the State Standards to measure our classroom capacities.  On page 16 of the 2009_Oct_Facilities_Presentation, the School Board stated the capacities for GBS, WCS and WMS totaled 1,840.  Here is a sample of what was presented.

Vew the Chart from page 16 of the 2009_Oct_Facilities_Presentation

Then somewhere around 2011, the Board began to use a new theoretical formula that deviated from the NH State standards for measuring Educational Capacities.  Both methods, and how they relate to State Standards, are briefly discussed in Appendix A.  The results of the School Board's methdolgy are presented as "Theoretical Student Capacity based solely on size".  This can be seen in the 2011 Master Plan (see pages 12 - 14 of the Masterplan-AppendixFG_05-16-2011).  As stated in Appendix A, this theoretical methodolgy is based on each school building's gross square footage, which is NOT applicable to measuring a building's educational capacities.  When the theoretical formula is applied to GBS, WCS and WMS, the theoretical capacities of those schools are incorrectly reported to be 742 students less than the actual capacities the Board reported in 2009 and earlier -- even though the main buildings are the same today as they were back then.

To provide another perspective... if the theoretical formula was used to determine the student capacity of our High School, the results would be higher than the 1,000 students it was designed to accommodate.

Unfortunately, up until now the theoretical figures have not been questioned.  This has led to a growing misunderstanding of our overcrowding issue for more than two years -- which has subsequently been reinforced with, respectfully, other inaccurate information.  For example, on page 29 of the 6-19-12 PUBLIC PACKET, the School Board shows that Windham schools are over capacity by 450 students (estimate), but several lines below in the same matrix, it states the schools are 865 students over capacity.  This error is clearly unintentional, but it does increase confusion.

View the chart from page 29 of the 6-19-12 PUBLIC PACKET

In addition, the "Current number of students" listed above for GBS is 719 -- but this figure incorrectly includes the kindergarten students.  This could lead one to believe the student enrollment in the main GBS building was higher then it actual was... and since we had a solution for the kindergarten students via the new kindergarten that was ready to open a few months after the presentation was written, this compounds the confusion further by incorrectly suggesting there is a larger number of students we need to accommodate.

Another thing to note in the matrix above is the "built for" definitions that were used for each school.  These figures do not represent the design capacities for the schools.  Based on ED 321.02 (e), GBS was designed and built for 551 students plus art and music, WCS for 675 students, and WMS for 675 students, as can be seen on page 1 of this report at the time the Center School and Middle School were being planned for expansion in 2000-2001.

More recent estimates of being over capacity can be found on pg 5 of the SchoolBoardFacilitiesPresentation-FINAL-2013-01-11.  These figures below state the "Classroom Capacity" of GBS, WCS and WMS.  This is inaccurate because the capacities were not produced using State Standards.  Instead, the School Board used their theoretical formula -- which incorrectly suggests grades 1 - 8 are 742 students over capacity in 2012/13.  In previous reports, these capacities were identified as being theoretical, but here the "theoretical" label was dropped.

View the chart from pg 5 of the 20130111 WSD_FacilitiesRecommendation

More confusion can be found on pages 26 and 39 of the WSD Capacity Report 2012-2016 9-12-12.  On page 29 it states the Windham Center School was designed to house 472 students based entirely on size (using the “theoretical” formula), but later in the "Recommendations" section on page 39, it implies that WCS has the capacity to house 675 students in 27 classrooms with a maximum of 25 students each (which aligns with the design capacity of that school);

“2013-2016 Capacity and Operations It must be noted that based entirely on size, WCS was designed to house 472 students, although the school currently houses 630 students and will house 631 to 664 students during the following three school years (WSD Facilities Master Plan, 2011).”   - WSD Capacity Report 2012-2016 9-12-12.pdf (pg 26)

“Maintain 27 regular education classroom spaces at WCS while keeping teacher-student ratios at or below the recommended maximum of 1:25:”  - WSD Capacity Report 2012-2016 9-12-12.pdf (pg 39)

When the portables, kindergarten and High School are added to the 2009 capacities for grades 1-8 (based on State Standards), the educational capacity of the Windham School District is over 3,200 students.  When this is compared to our current enrollment of 2,771 students, it is easy to see that our school district as a whole is NOT over capacity by 742 students.  However, there are serious overcrowding issues in some of our grades, as well as other challenges that do need to be addressed.

Although the portable classrooms are not an ideal solution, they are a resource that is currently being used to relieve some of the enrollment pressure.  They do not provide a long term solution, but before we discard the usage/capacities of the portables and seek to replace them with a permanent, long term building -- we need to determine if the overcrowding issues are a short term or long term problem.

There is no doubt that our school system is experiencing serious issues that must be addressed, and that our School Board has spent numerous hours looking at the problems before coming to their conclusion that we need to build a new $31M school.  But were those decisions based on accurate information?  What is the big picture, and what issues will remain after a new school is built?  How much more money will need to be spent to alleviate the remaining issues?  This series will take a fresh look at the school district's challenges so that together -- as a community -- we can find common ground and work together to resolve them.

Windham Taxpayers Coalition

www.WindhamTaxpayers.org