Following several meetings of the school board and facilities committee, the Fayetteville-Manlius Board of Education decided to maintain kindergarten through eighth grade community campuses in the Fayetteville and Manlius areas while the district considers future facilities projects.
Over the past few years, the district has undergone a long-term facilities needs assessment to determine which buildings are in need of repairs or upgrades. After conducting a building conditions survey, the district found that repairs are needed in all six buildings, but Wellwood Middle School in Fayetteville and Enders Road Elementary School in Manlius have repair costs that would exceed the cost of replacing the current buildings with new ones.
The facilities committee, made up of school board members and other F-M faculty and administration, has been taking information from building conditions reports, district priorities and community feedback into consideration for facilities updates. So far, the facilities committee has drafted a handful of facilities update options. According to a press release from the school, the options include:
Option 1: Complete necessary repairs to each school as estimated on the Building Condition Survey and Facility Evaluation.
Option 2: Complete necessary repairs to each school as estimated on the Building Condition Survey plus additions to each building to accommodate program enhancements.
Option 3: Consolidate to one middle school by repurposing Wellwood; complete repairs to the other five schools; add classrooms at each elementary school and enlarge Eagle Hill to accommodate expanded enrollment under current grade-level configuration (grades five to eight).
Option 4: Consolidate to one middle school by repurposing Wellwood; complete repairs to the other five schools; add classrooms at each elementary school to accommodate an additional grade level (grades K to fifth) and enlarge Eagle Hill to accommodate enrollment in grades six to eight.
Option 5: Repurpose Wellwood; construct a new high school building; convert the existing F-M High School into a single middle school (or two smaller middle schools within one building); decommission and demolish Enders Road and transform Eagle Hill into an elementary school (for the Enders Road attendance area); complete some upgrades to Mott Road, Fayetteville Elementary and Eagle Hill (including a retro-fit for elementary students).
“This is just a starting point. We as a governance team should continue to challenge each other,” said Superintendent Craig Tice. “We should push ourselves to consider additional criteria and continue to consider community feedback.”
On Dec. 12, the board of education held a meeting during which a 45-minute public comment period occurred. While there were varying opinions, many members of the pubic spoke about the importance of maintaining the K to eight community campus that Fayetteville has with Wellwood and Fayetteville Elementary neighboring each other, and a similar situation in Manlius with Eagle Hill and Enders Road Elementary. Currently, elementary grades are K to fourth and middle school are grades five to eight.
“Neighborhood schools work. You can see it in studies and in the success of students,” said Dave Carey, of Fayetteville.
“We must be doing something right,” said Ginger Roddy, of Manlius. “We ought to keep our schools small.”
After a two-hour discussion, the board agreed to reject Option 5 (rebuild the high school and move the middle schools to that building) and that going forward maintaining the current K-8 community campus set-ups would be a priority.
The board asked facilities advisors to determine the necessary repairs and updates of the high school and draft a capital project in hopes it can be brought to the public for a vote by the end of the 2016-17 school year. The facilities committee is also considering forming a facilities task force made up of district administration and members of the public in order to include more input into the eventual facilities decisions.
To learn more about the F-M facilities project, go to fmschools.org/facilities. To give feedback, go to the the F-M Let’s Talk! webpage at fmschools.org/let’stalk.ext.
