Finding a Solution to the Overcrowding Issue Within the District

District's Overcrowding Issue

For several years, the district has experienced heightened overcrowding issues, which has been presumably getting drastically worse.  Due to our current overcrowding issue, students and teachers have been pushed into other areas of the school to help accommodate our district-wide problem (Opotow, 2006, p. 139).  Teachers have been forced to teach in the auditorium, the gymnasium, and in less common places including the hallway.  This has created less than ideal circumstances for teachers as well as students and has adversely influenced their classroom experience.  There is only one way to solve the district’s long-term overcrowding issue, which is based on the premise of new construction.

Plausible Solutions

Attempting to solve the district’s overcrowding issue by renovating or adding an annex to the existing schools will merely serve as a temporary solution, which through a district budget analysis, may end up costing more money in the long run as compared to building a new construction.  Renovations displace students, teachers, and other faculty members during the construction phase, which results in relocation costs in addition to renovation expenditures.  Moreover, placing students in an existing building like an old store or building requires a significant amount of money to have the building in compliance with the “required building and safety codes for housing students under the age of 18 (fire sprinklers, natural light, lack of required playfields, ADA accessibility, etc)” (Purpose of the Bond, 2011, p. 5). Hence, bringing a previously existing building up to code will cost millions upon millions of dollars and place students in teachers in a less than adequate educational facility.

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