A new elementary school? I was wrong--but now I'm right!

(The following is a comment by decorahnews.com's Paul Scott.  We welcome Letters to the Editor at news@decorahnews.com):

"I was wrong!  It turns out the new elementary school site plan proposed by the Decorah School Board is, as one supporter put it, 'a better plan' than the one submitted one year ago to the Decorah City Council.

This site plan got off on the right foot when it was agreed the tennis courts—which cost $364,000 to build seven years ago—should be relocated off the property so the new elementary school site plan wouldn't look like it had just taken part in a game of Twister.  The new site plan also tackled some traffic congestion problems, going to a system of where students on buses and students in cars would be dropped off or picked up in different locations—a much better system than the site plan from one year ago.

So for those whose biggest consideration in judging the site plan of a new elementary school is how close it is to downtown and to Decorah High School, this plan checks off all the right boxes.

Of course, I have another possible solution to consider—one that I think checks a lot of boxes and one that I'm pretty sure hasn't been studied yet:

The elementary school building proposed for the softball diamond property owned by the City of Decorah is projected to handle four grades—early childhood, first, second and third grades.  Fourth and fifth grades would be at Carrie Lee School and sixth, seven and eighth grades would be at Decorah Middle School.  So any alternate proposal about school facilities has to come up with a way to handle four grade levels.

My suggestion is that instead of building one big school with four grade levels, you build two smaller school buildings with two grade levels each—one on the Carrie Lee/Middle School property and one on the Aase Haugen/Vennehjem property.

Under this concept, early childhood and first grade would be housed in a new building on the Middle School property, connected to either Carrie Lee or the Middle School; second and third grades would be in Carrie Lee; fourth, fifth and sixth grades in Decorah Middle School and seventh and eighth grade classes would be in a new facility near Vennehjem.

Here are the advantages of this system:

--Children from early childhood through sixth grade could walk to school.  They could also walk to downtown Decorah and its many attractions.

--High school students could walk to the Middle School campus to interact with young kids or take a shuttle. 

--Seventh and eighth graders would have a brand new school on 20 acres of land, with lots of green space for soccer fields or other athletic facilities.

--The school district would not have to pay $700,000 for property on Claiborne Drive.

--Instead the school district would pay $1 for 20 acres near Vennhjem.  That's 20 acres for $1.

--The school district would not have to relocate tennis courts that cost $364,000 to build six years ago.

--The high school campus would be for high school students only, without the traffic problems caused by having newly licensed teenagers driving in an area where young children are walking.

--The school district could build a bus garage on part of the 20 acres of Vennehjem land, saving yearly rental payments.

--John Cline could be torn down, creating an even larger "green space."

Under this plan, there would be three school campuses—the Vernon Street property that would handle early childhood through sixth grade with no traffic from Decorah High School to contend with; a new seventh and eighth grade facility that would have plenty of room for future expansion, if needed, and the current Decorah High School campus, with none of the John Cline congestion to complicate the situation.

All of this could be done without having to purchase City of Decorah property and would allow existing facilities to remain where they are, with no demolition or relocation expenses."