Lincoln Public Schools officials want to know how community members envision the future of education in the capital city.
And in the next several years, that future will likely include a new high school.
While the focus of the meetings is on updating the district's five-year strategic plan and initiating broad discussions about education, they could also guide LPS officials on the complicated topic of where to put a new high school -- and just what new high schools should look like.
“It’s really the million dollar question,†said Liz Standish, associate superintendent of business affairs. “That’s the conversation that has to take place.â€
The strategic plan will likely be broader than that. The current plan included goals such as raising the graduation rate, engaging the community and increasing diversity.
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But if enrollment in LPS says anything, it’s that the district is growing -- much faster than it was when LPS built North Star and Southwest, the district’s two newest high schools.
“We’re packed,†said school board president Don Mayhew. “We knew we were growing, but we’re packed faster than we thought we would be. The growth has just been phenomenal.â€
The 987 additional students that graced the halls of Lincoln’s public schools this year pushed total enrollment to nearly 41,000. That’s a 2.5 percent increase over last year, 12 percent over five years ago and up 24 percent in the last decade.
Three of Lincoln’s six high schools have more than 2,000 students and East High, which for years was the smallest high school with enrollment hovering somewhere in the 1,400s, has ballooned to nearly 1,900 students this fall.
Compare that with the growth 17 or so years ago, when LPS was considering building the first new high schools in 35 years.
From the fall of 1996 to the fall of 2002, when Southwest High School opened, LPS grew just 3.5 percent, from 30,779 students to 31,867. Annual enrollment growth during that period was less than 1 percent.
Still, it had been steady enough that the community decided it should support a $100 million bond issue to build two new high schools for the first time since East High opened in 1967.
It isn’t likely to take three decades this time.
Since 1992, LPS has successfully passed bond issues every seven years. If that history holds true -- and voters remain supportive -- that would happen again in 2021.
Mayhew thinks the possibility that a new high school -- or schools -- will be part of that discussion is likely.
“I’d be very surprised if we’re not talking about a high school,†he said.
That’s a more complicated discussion than it seems.
For one thing, the city’s decision to invest in a major trunk sewage line along Stevens Creek has finally opened the area on the eastern edge of the city for development.
Waterford Estates near 98th and O streets is one of the first developments there -- and part of what prompted LPS to add on to three existing elementary schools in the area as part of the bond issue passed in 2014. As that sewage line is extended south, there will be significant development there in the next five years, said City Planning Director David Cary.
In the last year, the city has approved building permits for 216 single family and town homes along the eastern corridor of the city -- but the area has a capacity for 11,129 more homes within the next two decades, according to city planning figures.
Along the southern border, the city approved 368 permits for single family, town home and apartments within the last year. And there’s a potential for 14,441 more.
While there’s less pressure on the north side -- 160 building permits in the last year with the potential for 6,278 more -- North Star is the district’s most crowded high school, prompting LPS to tighten its existing open enrollment policy and alter boundaries.
When the district began talking about building new high schools in the late '90s, a couple of board members floated the idea of smaller schools, Mayhew said.
The community response was a resounding ‘no,’ he said. The community wanted comprehensive high schools with theaters and swimming pools and full-sized gymnasiums.
Now, Mayhew said, the landscape is different.
Advances in technology have broadened the possibility of distance education, he said. The community already has expressed some interest in dual language schools. The full effect of The Career Academy remains to be seen. Magnet schools are popular in many communities.Â
“I think it’s a broader, richer question we’re asking,†Mayhew said.
But the possibility of different types of high schools breeds lots of other questions about equity and programming. Would a smaller high school have full music and athletic programs? Would not having them be OK?
And if you do build one or perhaps two new high schools, that puts pressure on ancillary facilities -- football fields, for instance.
Bottom line: It’s not just a matter of geography, it’s a matter of programming and defining the sort of education Lincoln wants to offer its young people.
District officials will soon have recommendations on updating the 10-year building plan, but they'll hold off on high schools. That requires community discussion.
“The high school discussion will be the more complex one,†Standish said. “There’s not a black and white answer.â€