Roanoke City Public Schools has received initial findings on options for expanding capacity at its high schools.
During a school board meeting Tuesday, Chris Perkins, the school division’s chief operations officer, said architects at RRMM had completed the first phase of the feasibility study that included visits to existing facilities and meetings with various city departments.
The division received those initial findings in mid-December and is now moving into a second phase to identify which option to recommend to the school board, which will have the final say on a method to reduce overcrowding for high school students.
Perkins didn’t give any indication of which options may work best for the schools’ needs, but a Tuesday evening press release from the Jefferson Center claimed that using space at the performing arts center appeared to be out of consideration.
Both William Fleming and Patrick Henry high schools are over capacity, and crowding is not anticipated to decrease in the near future.
Perkins said the board would receive a full presentation on the three options that were examined at its February meeting, which is scheduled for Feb. 11.
Then, the school board and city council will meet jointly to review the expansion options. That meeting was originally scheduled for February but has been bumped back to March 3.
The three expansion options include adding on to the two existing high schools, building a new high school or opening a magnet school, either by constructing a new facility or renovating an existing site.
An arts magnet school at the Jefferson Center was one of a few options proposed by the division at a joint meeting of school board and city council members in September. A magnet high school there would focus on the arts and pull in students from across Roanoke, rather than from a particular part of the city.
At that meeting, a magnet school at the Jefferson Center seemed to be Superintendent Verletta White’s favorite option. She spoke about the significance of the Jefferson Center as a potential site for the school due in part to its history as a formerly segregated high school.
A news release emailed from the Jefferson Center on Tuesday night said that it is no longer being considered by the school division.
The email said the school division had determined that the Jefferson Center “would not be able to accommodate the student capacity required to meet the school board’s needs.”
That announcement was not based on official communication, Jefferson Center Executive Director Cyrus Pace said by phone Wednesday. Rather, it’s a prediction based on the school division’s capacity needs that were examined during the first phase of the feasibility study.
“We believe we’re a less viable option than originally hoped,” Pace said.
The center’s release went on to say that the center continues to look to the city council for infrastructure support for the century-old facility.
The city owns the center, but it’s managed by the Jefferson Center nonprofit. The center needs more than $6 million in repairs over the next five years in order to remain operational, according to a capital needs assessment.
School board chair Eli Jamison said the board had not yet discussed or decided on any recommendations and expects to hear details of all three options at its upcoming meetings.
