Community Survey Results - February 2020

The Facility Advisory Committee has been meeting since November in order to develop recommendations to accommodate the district's rapid enrollment growth and continue to provide quality learning environments. As part of the process, at the beginning of February, we solicited feedback from the community through a Thoughtexchange survey.

FAC used Thoughtexchange to gather community input around this question: What are the most important perspectives to consider as we plan for future facilities to accommodate growth in our district?

Thank you to the 1,259 participants who shared 1,421 thoughts and gave 42,854 ratings to the thoughts shared! We invite everyone to explore the feedback.

The Facility Advisory Committee shared and discussed this community feedback at their February 27 meeting. The input gathered in this exchange will be considered as the committee continues to develop their recommendations to accommodate the district’s rapid enrollment growth and continue to provide quality learning environments. The Superintendent and School Board will consider these recommendations as it plans for future ballot measures to fund construction.

You can also view the results. When you click the button below, you will see an overview of the total input and thoughts generated.

Thoughtexchange Report

Top Thoughts: If you click View in this area you will be able to review all the thoughts rated from highest to lowest. There are a total of 1,421 individual thoughts.

Theme Tiles: This section breaks out the thoughts into themes. There are themes that relate directly to the committee’s work and themes for other thoughts that were shared that were not specifically related to Facility Advisory Committee work:

Aging facilities
Athletic facilities
Building (how/what/where)
Choice Schools
Enrollment growth
Funding facilities
Plan future growth
Space

If you hover over each theme, you can see the number of thoughts and the average score. If you click on a tile, you can read the detailed thoughts rated from highest to lowest.

Other themes not related specifically to the committee’s work:

Class Size
Educational Program
Excellent Staff
Safety
Transportation
Other

The committee discussed observations such as confirmation of high growth, concerns around the use of portables and comments around the need for planning. The committee shared that some of the community did not have all the information they needed and asked the district to provide communication to to dispel rumors and myths. See each area below for additional details.

Aging facilities

Athletic facilities

The community expressed the need for additional space for sports and recreation. This included additional gymnasium space. However, the community also shared that they feel many of our fields are not being used (i.e., middle school baseball/softball fields), and they would like to see these replaced with additional multi-use fields that are better maintained. Some community members also expressed an interest in adding swimming pools.

Building (how/what/where)

How do we build?
The Community had an interest in partnering with our cities to build multi-use facilities (school and community spaces). They also shared a desire to build cost-effective schools that are built to last. Comments were shared about designing schools for future growth/additions, but then other community members questioned why we then add on to schools. Some community members said we should build space that isn’t used right away and other expressed concerns when new schools had unused space. Additional communication may be necessary to help the community understand the good planning that is being done by the district.

What do we build?
The community shared a lot about what we should build. They would like us to build larger schools, with larger common space. They specifically mentioned more high school space. There was an emphasis on building permanent buildings versus building portables. Building for future growth and designing buildings for growth was also an interest, as was building multi-story buildings or building up our current facilities. The community would like to see additional covered areas for recess and waiting at the start of the school day. More parking and better designs for traffic flow were two additional areas of interest. Some also expressed concerns around adequate special needs space and accessibility to our schools.

Where do we build?
The need for property was shared as a concern by our community, as it will be even more challenging to find space to build schools in the future.

Choice Schools

Enrollment growth

Funding facilities

The community expressed that they feel developers should pay more for growth. Some community members confirmed that we need to change the 60% approval rate needed for bonds to pass and shared an interest in either running larger bonds or using levies as the preferred method to build schools. Many community members emphasized fiscal responsibility. They also shared that the business community should be required to better support our schools.

Plan future growth

Many community members provided feedback that the district should plan for the long-term and build for future growth. They feel the district needs to better understand where the development will happen, and working with the cities to better plan for this growth. They did not want to rely on portables as the only option to house students for future growth. There was also an interest in LWSD working with the cities/counties to try to curb growth in our area. The committee shared that additional communication may be necessary to help the community understand that extreme enrollment growth is causing the capacity issues and not lack of planning by the district.

Space

Visit the online interactive report to learn about the top thoughts that emerged during the online feedback window.