District Challenges

27 Facilities
5 Competitive Communities
Aging Infrastructures
Mistrust from past planning
High Expectations
Rapid Enrollment Growth
Inequitable Facilities
Safety concerns

Facing the challenges of rapid enrollment growth, aging facilities, concerns about equity and a desire to develop future-focused educational environments, the Iowa City Community School District commissioned the BLDD/Unicom•ARC team to conduct a community engagement planning process to develop a long-term facilities master plan. The “ONE VISION” facilities master planning process created a 10 year master plan that serves as the District’s roadmap for future facilities decision making.

The community was given the responsibility to investigate the issues facing the school district, recommend solutions for a long range plan, and select the strongest plan for implementation.

Finding the best plan.

A citizens’ led community engagement planning process was undertaken. Citizens brainstormed three different “big picture” approaches: consider expanding existing facilities; consider reconfiguring existing grade level configurations, and consider changing the existing mix of elementary, junior high, and high school facilities.

Examples of proposed solutions:

Future-focused upgrades and security upgrades to all facilities
Various combinations of new elementary and junior high facilities and retired elementary facilities
Historic renovations of elementary facilities
Change high school configurations
Build third high school
Build additions to existing high schools
Build additions and move 9th grade to middle schools, make high schools 10-12

All approaches were modeled using our cost-benefit analysis software (QLEO) to determine the best plan for moving forward.