By VICKI URBANIK

When a school committee began exploring the building needs of the Duneland Schools, the focus seemed to be almost exclusively on the elementary level. But on Thursday, the committee started to delve into the space needs at a different level: The middle school.

Chesterton Middle School Principal James Ton told members of the Duneland Key Communicator Committee that with nearly 900 students at CMS, space is limited. Although the building housed four grade levels and about 500 more students when it was the high school, the retrofit of the building into CMS also meant the loss of three wings, which are now being used for the central administration, the alternative school and the day care center run by the Duneland Family YMCA.

“We don’t have anything we’re not using currently,” Ton said.

The only part of the building not directly in use by the Duneland Schools is the YMCA day care center. Committee members ended their meeting Thursday by taking a tour of the day care, the only part of the building that wasn’t renovated after the new Chesterton High school was built. The area housed the freshman English classes when the building was CHS.

Ton said when CMS inherited the building, it secured school amenities unlike those at most other middle schools, such as the pool and the auditorium. “I think we’ve got a silk purse here, but we have a lot of people in it,” he said.

Statistics presented to the committee during its previous two meetings showed that from 1999 to 2007, enrollment in grades 7 and 8 climbed from 837 to 874, with projections showing that the middle school enrollment will climb to 1,064 in seven years. CMS is now at 95.1 percent of its functional capacity, above the ideal range of 90 to 92 percent.

It was noted by Ton and others Thursday that while Duneland has five elementary schools located throughout the school district and two intermediate schools, all students come together at one building when they hit the middle school level.

Consultant Robert Boyd, who is leading the communicator group meetings, said in response to a committee member’s question that the issue of just how large a middle school should be is a broad one. But, he said, generally speaking, the ideal is thought to be around 400 to 500 students.

Ton noted that CMS employs a “school within a school” concept by dividing the students into three separate teams -- the C, M, and S teams -- with each functioning nearly like an individual school. He said without that approach, it would be nearly impossible to have a well functioning middle school due to the large overall enrollment.

It was also noted by committee members that the Portage and Valparaiso school corporations each have two middle schools.

Duneland Director of Special Services Mark McKibben said that when school officials studied a possible new CHS, a concern was raised about parking if the former CHS was expanded. A building expansion would have eroded the limited parking that already existed.

But, he said, parking isn’t nearly as much of an issue for a middle school, since the students don’t yet drive.

Tax Impacts

Also at Thursday’s meeting, Boyd presented an overview of school finances, including the impact of the state’s new tax law.

Under H.E.A. 1001, elementary school building projects that exceed $10 million and secondary building projects that exceed $20 million may be subject to a referendum. The past practice in Indiana has been to use a petition process for taxpayer approval of school projects.

Boyd said that politically speaking, there is a big difference between the two methods. A petition process, like the dueling petitions for and against the new CHS years ago, demands the active involvement of people who must organize and seek out signatures to support their position for or against a new school. But with a referendum, voters don’t have to become as involved, but can simply vote on the issue in the voting booth.

The referendum language takes effect next year. Boyd said he needs more information before saying for sure if a new Duneland school project would undergo the referendum or the petition process if, for example, the school board would recommend a new building within the next few months.

Boyd also said that it’s generally accepted that schools can afford to have capital debt in the range of 10 percent to 15 percent of their assessed valuation. Duneland Schools has an assessed value of $2.6 billion, so the school corporation could financially afford to have up to $391 million in capital debt. But Duneland has only two outstanding bonds: One that’s to mature in 2014 and the other, for the new CHS, both totaling just under 1 percent of the overall AV.

Boyd also took note that while new school buildings will still be funded through local property taxes, Indiana has now changed the funding source for school operating expenses.

With HEA 1001, the state will assume school general fund expenses beginning next year.

That means, Boyd noted, that school finances in Indiana will now be directly tied to the economy, funded though the state sales and income taxes instead of the more stable property tax.

“That puts us in a little bit of a more precarious position to predict the future,” Boyd said.

Boyd was asked by McKibben how the state intends to deal with additional expenses that schools typically incur when they build new schools.

In the past, schools have been able to seek excess levy appeals due to the increased cost for utilities, added teachers and the like.

Boyd said he doesn’t think HEA 1001 addresses the excess levy question, now that the state will be assuming school operating expenses. “I think they dodged that,” he said.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of the Duneland Key Communicator Committee will be at 7 p.m. at Liberty Elementary School. The committee meetings are open to the public.

Posted 4/4/2008