Springfield City Schools won’t address overcrowding for 2017

The Springfield City School District will not be making changes to address overcrowding for the 2017 school year.

Superintendent Bob Hill said in a press release that because no clear solution is avaiable at this time, the district has decided to postpone any changes.

“I cannot recommend rushing to spend millions of dollars for a solution that will not be optimal and might jeopardize our flexibility,” He said. “I want to thank our staff for the jobs that they do every day, even in spaces that are sometimes not optimal, as they continue to put the interests of our students first.

“I am sorry that there is no easy solution to this problem, but we will continue to pursue options. I plan to update the Board again in May of this year,” He said.

Any chanages would take months to put into action, and therefore it is impossible to have the district ready for the 2017 school year, Hill said.

The district has spent the last couple months exploring options to reduce some overcrowding in elementary schools. They have explored moving sixth grade students from the elementary schools to the high schools and turning the current Keifer Acadmey building into a middle school and they have talked about changing the Clark Center back into a middle school.

The school held three community forums for community members to address the administration about the issues. Final results from a survey taken at forums showed residents were mixed in opinion as to how to fix the problems.

The school board has also discussed the options at length while holding multiple work sessions and school board meetings about it.