West Lafayette Community School Corporation board members voted to establish a committee with as many as 40 community volunteers serving on it.
Superintendent Rocky Killion says that group will examine the current buildings and discuss options for the long-term.
“We have two buildings that are over 50 years old and at some point you have to consider what is it that you want to do with these buildings. Do we upgrade them? Do we just continue to try to band-aid them?”
He says the buildings that house Cumberland and Happy Hollow elementary are more than 50 years old and part of the junior-senior high dates back to the early 1900s.
A call-out for volunteers is expected soon with a goal of having the group’s first meeting in June.
Killion believes this effort is needed to address the district’s aging buildings.
“There are a lot of things we have to look at and we just want our community members to be aware of it and try to create some kind of plan of attack to how we deal with facilities in the future.”
Besides the three school buildings, the district also maintains a gym at the old Burtsfield Elementary site on Salisbury Street, south of Lindberg Road.
“We hope to have some kind of information this fall where we can put together a five year plan for consideration,” says Killion.
The school board began discussing future space needs last summer. Some of the ideas included moving fourth grade students to Cumberland School and adding classrooms at Happy Hollow. Another possibility is building at the Burtsfield property housing kindergarten and an early education program.