The Appoquinimink School District Building Utilization Committee has decided to postpone a referendum planned for this year until 2010.
Dr. Tony Marchio, superintendent of the district, said at the March 10 Board of Education meeting that due to increasing student enrollment, a new early childhood center will be needed by 2011, a new elementary school will be needed by 2012 and a new high school and a new middle school will be needed by 2014 or 2015.
He said the decision was made to postpone the referendum due to the current economic crisis.
“We are very aware of what’s happening in our community. We feel conditions are extreme,” Marchio said. “We will be in decent shape with a one-year delay. With a two-year delay, we’re not in good shape.”
He said the district thought student enrollment would decrease with the current decline in the housing market, but that is not the case.
“We’re using kindergarten registration as an indication of what’s to come,” Marchio said. “We had 500 new students register for next year.”
He showed data from the Wilmington Area Planning Council that shows population within the district from 1995, 2005, 2015 and 2030. In 1995, the population within the district was 20,220. That number more than doubled to 41,548 in 2005, and it’s expected to rise to 66,429 by 2015 and 97,098 by 2030.
The referendum next year will include a new early childhood center and site, a new 840-student elementary school and site, renovations to Townsend Elementary School, a classroom wing addition to Olive B. Loss Elementary School and a kitchen addition to Appoquinimink Early Childhood Center.
Marchio said the new early childhood center was not projected to be built so soon.
“We miscalculated the early childhood center,” he said. “It may be due to going to all day kindergarten.”
Another referendum will be needed soon after to fund a new 1,600-student high school and a new 1,000-student middle school.
A third referendum will be needed to fund another 840-student elementary school.
“This will do a nice job of keeping capacity ahead of enrollment,” Marchio said.
He said the district will continue to utilize its buildings as best as possible to serve its students.
Elementary research projects
Students in the district are learning ways to improve their research and reporting skills through various techniques.
Lara Crowley, district English Language Arts Specialist, presented to the board how first- through eighth-grade students are using the Big 6 research process and 6 Traits of Writing to better communicate information they’ve learned through research projects.
To coincide with the district’s 21st century skills approach, students in that grade now research and report on a culture.
Crowley said she remembers bringing home stacks of books from a library and regurgitating the information in a report when she did a research project about the Berlin Wall for school.
“We don’t want children to just regurgitate information,” she said. “We want them to be critical thinkers, evaluate sources and present what they find.”
Crowley said they teach students to narrow the scope of their project.
“The children will identify a topic within a greater topic,” she said.
Crowley said they also prepare the students for the project with helpful tips.
“If we want a child to identify and use research skills, we need to walk them through the process every year,” she said.
Christy Payne, library media specialist at Alfred G. Waters Middle School, said the Big 6 steps are task definition, information seeking strategies, location and access, use of information, synthesis and evaluation.
“Big 6 is something kids see every year over and over again,” she said. “We always identify standards we’re addressing. We prepare students with background information on what they’re researching and then they go to the library.”
Payne said students play a game called Trash or Treasure to decipher what information they need to keep and what is not pertinent to their project.
She said one important thing they talk to students about is plagiarism.
“From first grade we teach what it is and how to avoid it,” Payne said. “It’s something they continuously need to hear.”
Sue Howton, a fifth-grade teacher at Olive B. Loss Elementary School, said assessment of how the students research and report is the last piece of the project.
She said they assess the students by having them write to people in other countries, write reflective letters to Payne and write a letter as if they were going to another culture.
“Overall, they really enjoyed the culture unit,” Howton said. “We had great feedback.”
Payne said they hope students get more sophisticated in their research as they move through the grades.
“In eighth-grade, this was one of the first times we asked students to write a full research paper,” she said. “We get into thesis and outlining. It’s going really well. It has become a part of their learning.”
Energy awards
Bob Hershey, facilities and buildings supervisor for the district, presented Everett Meredith Middle School Chief Custodian Dennis Scott with the annual Energy Conservation Award for having the largest decrease in kilowatt usage from November 2007 to November 2008 out of the all the schools in the district.
Scott, who previously won the award at Olive B. Loss Elementary School, helped the school use 16 fewer kilowatts in that time with 1,042,400 kilowatts from 2007 to 2008 compared with 1,233,920 from 2006 to 2007.
Hershey said the main way chief custodians in each building work to conserve energy use is by turning lights off in rooms that aren’t in use.
“It’s through the efforts of administrators and night and day chiefs to keep these lights off as much as possible,” he said.
Hershey said Middletown High School Chief Custodian Brien Shilling helped that school save 324,480 more kilowatts from 2007 to 2008 than from 2006 to 2007.
“Middletown was down 13 percent, but saved almost double the amount of [MMS],” he said.
The competition is based on kilowatt percentages, not the actual number of kilowatts saved, because the buildings vary in size.
Hershey said energy savings are already being seen at the Cedar Lane complex, which includes Cedar Lane Elementary School, Cedar Lane Early Childhood Center and Alfred G. Waters Middle School. All three schools share one meter.
The complex used 198,065 kilowatts less from 2007 to 2008 than from 2008 to 2009.
“They’re down nine percent from a year ago,” Hershey said. “Things are starting to come under control there.”
Hershey said energy conservation has become a competition among chief custodians.
“We have a lot of rivalry out there,” he said. “They’ve really gotten into it. These guys and ladies do a great job.”
Hershey said the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are all automatically controlled by his department. Buildings are kept at 68 degrees during the day and 60 at night.
He said when school was closed due to snow March 2, Energy Manager Andy Walton was able to keep the heat at all schools at the nighttime temperature.
Hershey said conservation is crucial to the district as energy prices rise.
“It’s going to save us money in the long run,” he said. “Any money saved can go back into education.”
Construction update
Hershey said drywall is up at Bunker Hill Elementary School and walls are being finished.
He said the lights and ceilings have also been installed.
Hershey said casework installation has begun. There are four large rooms with folding partitions in each of the five pods. Each room has two identical cubby areas as the rooms can be separated into two classrooms.
“The individual rooms have sound enhancement and LCD projectors,” he said. “This is the most technologically advanced school [in the district].”
Hershey said concrete seating has been designed for the amphitheater area outside the cafetorium.
He said they’ve bid the upcoming projects at Silver Lake and Cedar Lane elementary schools, Louis L. Redding Middle School and Middletown High School
“We’ll be awarding projects that will begin at Silver Lake and Redding,” Hershey said. “Those will begin the day school lets out. We’re excited about that.”
The next Board of Education meeting will be Tuesday, April 21, at 7 p.m. at the Appoquinimink Training Center.
The meeting will be held the third Tuesday of the month, instead of the second Tuesday, due to spring break.
