Springdale School District To Build New Elementary School

SPRINGDALE -- The Springdale School District has recently grown by enough students each year to fill an elementary school. The district will open its next elementary school in 2016.

The Arkansas Department of Education approved the school that will be on the east side of the city near J.O. Kelly Middle School, said Gary Compton, assistant superintendent for support services. The building will be about 100,000 square feet and have a similar design to other recently built elementary schools, such as Sonora Elementary School.

The school will be at the intersection of Oriole Street and Lakeside Avenue, according to the large-scale development plan submitted to the city. It will have entrance and exit drives onto Oriole Street with fields to the south and parking lots to the east and north. The property is 27.75 acres.

A maximum of 800 students will attend the school, Compton said. It will probably open with 500-600 students, though that number depends on population growth.

Most elementary schools in the city have 500-700 students, Compton said. Monitor, Sonora and Turnbow elementary schools, all on the east side of the city, have 816, 700 and 819 students respectively as of Dec. 3.

Some students from those three schools and others will likely be moved to the new school, Compton said. Officials will better know where the students will come from once they complete a rezoning of the district.

The school is included in the district's six-year master plan, Compton said. A new elementary school in the district generally costs $14 million to $15 million to construct, not including costs for additional staff, furniture and equipment.

Officials won't know how much money they will get from state partnership funding until May 1, 2015, Compton said. The amount is based on a formula that includes how much money the district has.

The remaining construction expense will come from the sale of second-lien bonds, said Kelly Hayes, district comptroller. He compared the bonds to a second mortgage on a house.

The district will pay the money back by 2041 through annual payments out of the operating budget, Hayes said. The district now has $16.75 million of debt from the sale of bonds used to construct new schools.

Districts can pay for new schools in a variety of ways, said Eric Saunders, assistant commissioner for fiscal and administrative services at the Arkansas Department of Education. Options include local money, millage increases and state partnership funding.

Members of the Planning Commission and City Council will discuss and vote on the large-scale development plan during meetings in January. The district can begin construction once the plans are approved, Compton said.

Districts commonly open new schools to accommodate growth or replace older facilities, Saunders said.

The Bentonville School District will open its second high school in Centerton in August 2016, said Paul Stolt, communications director. Population growth has pushed enrollment to about 4,300 students, which is near capacity, at the high school. A new elementary school that would open in 2017 is being discussed, Stolt said. He said many families with young children are moving into the city.

The Rogers School District's master plan includes a new elementary school to be built between 2018 and 2020, said Ashley Siwiec, communications director.

The Fayetteville School District grows by about 1 percent and doesn't have any plans for a new school, said Alan Wilbourn, communications director. The district will finish a $96 million expansion project at the high school in August, Wilbourn said. Ninth graders will move to the high school, which will shift the grade levels at the district's junior high, middle and elementary schools.

Springdale officials plan to move the School of Innovation, which is at The Jones Center, in fall 2016, Compton said. The school has 200 eighth-graders; will have 400 eighth-and ninth-graders next school year; and eventually about 1,000 eighth- through 12th-graders.

They will use the same methods as the new elementary school to pay for the move, Compton said. Officials are discussing whether to build a new school or buy and renovate a building.