CENTERVILLE —
Rapid growth in the Moravia School District, unforeseen 20 years ago, has led to a shortage of elementary classrooms.
Moravia had one section of each elementary grade when the elementary wing was built 20 years ago, Superintendent Brad Breon said. It now requires two sections for almost every elementary grade, and the state of Iowa projects the enrollment will keep climbing.
“Back when it was built 20 years ago, enrollment was declining,” Breon said. “They built what their needs were.”
School officials have proposed a $3.5 million bond issue to construct an addition of five classrooms with restrooms along with a freestanding gym.
Community information meetings about the bond issue will be held July 9 at 7 p.m. and Aug. 13 at 7 p.m. in the high school library.
During the 2003–2004 school year the Moravia School District served 335 students. It has 398 today, Breon said. According to the state’s projection, in 2015–2016 the Moravia district will have 440 students, a growth of about 100 students in a decade.
Those numbers include preschoolers, who were not part of the plan when the elementary school was built but who occupy two classrooms in it today, Breon said.
“Since I have been here six years, we have grown by 60 students,” said Breon, who was high school principal at English Valley before coming to Moravia.
Breon has already turned some high school classrooms into elementary classrooms, but this does not solve next year’s space shortage.
This fall Moravia will have a new reading specialist, Julie Sealine, but because there are no available rooms Breon is putting up walls in the library to create a temporary room for her.
Third and fourth grade are big enough they must be split, Breon said, but he was not able to split them in half as he wanted. There will be one third-grade room, one fourth-grade room and one with a combination of fourth-graders and third-graders. This solution uses three rooms instead of the four that would be used if both grades were split in half.
Lack of rooms also means Breon does not have the option of splitting the incoming kindergarten class of 25 students though that might be preferable. This class is the smallest elementary grade for the 2012–2013 school year and the only one that does not have to be split, Breon said.
“Four years ago, we only had one section” of each of these grades, he said.
One room that is smaller than the others will house a classroom of 20 students next year. Breon said this small room, which he deemed inappropriate for Moravia’s needs, would be turned into the hallway to the new addition with one half of it becoming a teacher’s lounge.
The proposed stand-alone gym would be across the parking lot from the current school building, which means no new parking lot would be necessary. The gym would include restrooms, a foyer, concession stands, and boys’ and girls’ home and away locker rooms.
Breon said that while the main issue is the classrooms, another issue is that the district does not have enough practice space for all the students’ programs. He coaches junior high girls’ basketball, and this past season they practiced at the Moravia Church of the Nazarene because of lack of space in the school.
“We are fortunate the Church of the Nazarene let us use their gym,” he said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have practiced much.”
Breon said the gym would be open for the public to use and would include a walking track. He said one perk to a stand-alone gym would be keeping the school building locked during sports events. Currently, he said, it is difficult to keep children from running through the halls during games.
Breon said he is not entirely certain why Moravia’s enrollment is going up while enrollments at surrounding schools are shrinking.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “There are just a lot of little things; there is not just one factor.”
He said some of the factors he has observed are people coming back home to raise their children, families moving into the new houses at Lake Sundown and parents who are able to stay in the area because they are working at Honey Creek Resort.
“I think the resort has helped,” Breon said. “For one, we started a golf team when the resort opened. … We are hoping to have a state meet out there someday.”
Darin Fisher, the resort’s head golf professional and director of golf operations, is the Moravia team’s coach.
One of the biggest factors, though, is that the open enrollment numbers are in Moravia’s favor. Students in Iowa can open enroll for any reason, and next year Moravia will have 76 students coming in from other districts but only about 40 leaving the district to attend elsewhere.
“I just think it’s because of our educational system, that would have to be part of it,” Breon said. “Our test scores show it and we have almost a zero dropout rate, almost a 100 percent graduation rate.”
Breon is adding information about the bond issue to the school’s website, www.moraviacsd.com, including a bond cost calculator so property owners can figure out what the project would cost them in taxes.
“It’s an investment in our community,” Breon said. “You get a chance to keep it in town.”
The bond issue will require 60 percent of the vote to pass. The vote will be Sept. 11, 2012, concurrent with the school board elections, and will be open to registered voters in the Moravia School District. The polling place will be the Moravia Community Building, with the polls open from noon to 8 p.m.
Local News
Related Photos
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Floor plan Submitted graphic
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The orange-colored box attached to the existing pre K-12 school is the classroom addition the Moravia Community School District is proposing. Submitted graphic
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July 5, 2012
Moravia Schools propose expansion
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