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Post by warriorpride on Sept 26, 2008 14:32:55 GMT -5
Overcrowded is not the same as maximum capacity. If a school is designed for 4700 and enrollment is 4700, it is NOT overcrowded. It may seem full, crowded, busy, etc., but by defnition it is not overcrowded. Choice of words is very important in these discussions. It's also semantics, which are subject to interpretation. Again, there's "available capacity" as defined by the state as nothing more than a measure of the buildings usable square footage. And there's "adjusted availale capacity", which is defined to be 80% of the available capacity, and there's maximum capacity, and optimal capacity, and people can argue what theses numbers are for each building and what they mean, but there's also a sense from the staff about how many is too many, and when the learning environment starts becoming impacted. I'd rather rely on the latter, vs looking at pure numbers and simply saying "well, the numbers show we can fit X students in here, so let's do it".
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Post by WeNeed3 on Sept 26, 2008 15:14:54 GMT -5
Overcrowded is not the same as maximum capacity. If a school is designed for 4700 and enrollment is 4700, it is NOT overcrowded. It may seem full, crowded, busy, etc., but by defnition it is not overcrowded. Choice of words is very important in these discussions. Have you been to any of the HS's lately during passing period? Or lunch? Obviously some people's idea of overcrowded is different than others. Right now, NV both campuses is 4700, schools are designed for 4200. Do you not call that overcrowded?
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Post by southsidesignmaker on Sept 26, 2008 19:53:51 GMT -5
Capacities can be argued until one is blue in the face. The high schools will finally have the avail. sq. footage to bring the frontier campus "in house" to each high school. With the added cost of college and everyone becoming so cost conscious wouldn't be nice to take 3-4 college credit classes as juniors and seniors, thus cutting college costs substantially. Sometimes with the wealth that we have in our district it is easy to forget what a financial burden college can be for families.
With added sq. footage comes added opportunities to save thousands towards a college education. Dr. dash spoke of this possibility earlier in the year--I only hope it becomes a reality. A reality that many families will be able to take advantage of in these uncertain times.
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Post by wvhsparent on Sept 26, 2008 20:33:05 GMT -5
Capacities can be argued until one is blue in the face. The high schools will finally have the avail. sq. footage to bring the frontier campus "in house" to each high school. With the added cost of college and everyone becoming so cost conscious wouldn't be nice to take 3-4 college credit classes as juniors and seniors, thus cutting college costs substantially. Sometimes with the wealth that we have in our district it is easy to forget what a financial burden college can be for families. With added sq. footage comes added opportunities to save thousands towards a college education. Dr. dash spoke of this possibility earlier in the year--I only hope it becomes a reality. A reality that many families will be able to take advantage of in these uncertain times. Very well put SSM.
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Post by asmodeus on Sept 26, 2008 23:12:48 GMT -5
All I can go by is the stated design. Before any school is built, the architects and SD know exactly how many kids they are building it for. The exact number. If it is intended for 3000 max, it is not fair to say that enrollment of 3000 is overcrowded. Now if the designs are flawed, as they seem to be in any number of aspects in our schools (narrow hallways, poor acoustics, poor airflow, etc.), that would certainly make it feel as though it was too crowded.
It is really infuriating that we can't use a tried and true school design to avoid some of these issues. Can someone tell what we paid for the plans for MV and whether these are new plans or if they are a tested design? Is it so wrong to want to sacrifice uniqueness for proven results?
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Post by warriorpride on Sept 26, 2008 23:21:14 GMT -5
All I can go by is the stated design. Before any school is built, the architects and SD know exactly how many kids they are building it for. The exact number. If it is intended for 3000 max, it is not fair to say that enrollment of 3000 is overcrowded. Now if the designs are flawed, as they seem to be in any number of aspects in our schools (narrow hallways, poor acoustics, poor airflow, etc.), that would certainly make it feel as though it was too crowded. It is really infuriating that we can't use a tried and true school design to avoid some of these issues. Can someone tell what we paid for the plans for MV and whether these are new plans or if they are a tested design? Is it so wrong to want to sacrifice uniqueness for proven results? NV was a borrowed design (from an HS in Minn?) and it still seems to have some issues. I thought that the word way back when, when MV was intially designed, was that there were some specific design considerations to improve the traffic flow in the hallways.
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