Embedded Files
Below is a transcript of an update presented to the Board of Education in May of 2022. This provides more context on why the district is pursuing a facility project.
Below is a transcript of an update presented to the Board of Education in May of 2022. This provides more context on why the district is pursuing a facility project.
Hello, I’m Mike Roberto, Superintendent of the Aurora City Schools here to share a few updates for our Aurora families.
To start, several parents have expressed concern about the growing population in the schools and how the new housing in Aurora will impact the district. In this update, I wanted to share a few pieces of information that we are monitoring and then ask for your input through a short survey.
1997-2022
We started looking at enrollment data from 25 years ago as this was the last time the schools experienced a significant population growth. As you can see from this graph in 1997 the district was comprised of approximately 2000 young people, but rose quickly over the next 10 years to 3000 students which we then have held fairly steady over the last 15 years.
1997 Building Breakdown
Taking a look at the population breakdown by building in 1997, you will first notice that there were only four schools in the district. Leighton had not yet been built. Also, as you can see in this graph the number of students in Miller (which housed grades K &1), Craddock (grade 2-4), and Harmon (grades 5-8) were higher in enrollment than they are today. Once Leighton, as shown by the yellow slope, was opened in 2001 numbers in all of our buildings except for AHS dropped from the previous years.
Last 10 Years
If we look at the enrollment in Miller (PreK-K) and Cradock (Grades 1 &2) over the last 10 years you can see that their is a slow but steady increase in enrollment.
Enrollment at Leighton (grades 3-5) also rose slightly over the last 10 years while enrollment in Harmon (grades 6-8) has been relatively constant.
Aurora High School has actually shown a small decrease over the last 10 years from a little over 1000 students in grades 9-12 to today’s 975 students. When this slight decrease is combined with the slight increases at the elementary levels the result is a fairly steady enrollment of 3000 students in the district over the last 10 years.
As you can see, we are growing but not nearly at the rate that we were in the late 90’s. However, this is not the only variable to consider when investigating the possibility of new construction. We also need to look at the buildings themselves.
ACSD Building Breakdown
Miller (1967 & 09) - 27,878 square feet
Craddock (1928, 49, 53, 60, & 65) - 58, 972 square feet
Leighton (2001) - 80,634 square feet
Harmon (1973 & 10) - 109,303 square feet
AHS (1965, 83, 97, 02, & 10) - 200,367 square feet
It is safe to say that we have gotten a lot of use out of our buildings by adding multiple additions over the years.
Capacity
Digging a little deeper into the building breakdown you can see from this information that each of the buildings are approaching capacity.
Available Classrooms = typical class that can hold 25 students
Other Rooms = rooms not typically designed to hold students (small group instruction)
In most cases the utilization of the extra rooms has allowed the majority of teachers to have a room, though we do have teachers that travel between buildings.
The estimated capacity of each of the building was determined by our most recent audit from the Ohio School Facilities Commission. As you can see the three schools with the highest occupancy are Harmon, Leighton, and Miller which technically is over capacity.
Beyond enrollment and capacity, we also need to consider the most recent construction in the district combined with the near future construction and the potential for construction down the road.
Historical Construction
Over the last decade Aurora has averaged less than 100 additional new houses being built per year. The highest rate of construction took place between 2018-2020 where the maximum amount of houses built was approximately 155 homes. One piece of information to remeber is that even with this large amount of construction our enrollment has remained steady holding around 3000 students.
Future Construction
In the near future, the City of Aurora has a number of permits for building already approved with the total number of houses or townhomes currently under construction at 87. This amount of new construction is on par and even slightly lower than the average construction in Aurora over the last five years.
Potential Construction
The last area concerning construction we are monitoring is the potential for construction in the various developments located in Aurora. One point of clarification, this does not include other potential areas in Aurora that are not in a designated development. In looking at the available expansion in each of these developments you can see their is a potential for another 400 plus houses to be added though if our construction patterns hold we can anticipate this taking four years or more to reach that number.
Of course there are other pieces of information to review besides enrollment and capacity when considering construction including the cost of maintaining and up keep of our current buildings which are showing their age.
I am sharing this information because the Aurora Board of Education has given us the green light to start to look into the possibilities of a new school building in the district. Reaching out to our Aurora families is one of the first steps. So, with that said, we are asking that each family complete a short survey attached to the Final Forms email which contains this video update.
Survey
This short survey will take only a few minutes to complete but will provide some important feedback from our families concerning the potential support for taking the next steps toward building a new school. Please be sure to take a few minutes to provide your input to the district.
Extra Question
You will notice a question that seems out of place on the survey and that is because it is! This question was included because the Ohio Department of Education is asking all school districts to report on the internet access in their community’s households. Please let us know which of the descriptions in this question best describes your household’s internet access.
Well, that is all for this update. I hope you consider providing your feedback in our short survey as we would like to have your input early on in the process. Thank you for taking the time to watch this video, take care, and GO GREENMEN!
Important Links
PDF Transcript Link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AA9I0Rh0OvDWXr6b7Od-o6Byv7ntdSyP/view?usp=sharing
ACSD Update New Construction Survey
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