New Battlefield school to help alleviate overcrowding

by Paul Schreiber

SBJ Reporter

pschreiber@sbj.net

Classroom overcrowding at three southwest Springfield schools is the reason behind the Springfield R-12 school district building Wilson's Creek 5th-6th Grade School on West Weaver Road in Battlefield. This is the first Springfield public school to handle these two grades exclusively.

Groundbreaking was held June 3 at the 22-acre site; scheduled completion for the 56,000-square-foot school is set for mid-2005, said Jim Dow, director of facilities for Springfield Public Schools.

"Cherokee, Wanda Gray and McBride are all overloaded," Dow said. "We're going to unload the sixth grade from Cherokee, that will give them more room, and unload parts of the fifth grade from Wanda Gray and McBride, and that relieves the overloading there."

When students finish the sixth grade at Wilson's Creek, they will go to seventh grade at Cherokee. Relieving Cherokee of its sixth grade will allow that school to expand its capacity to receive seventh grade students from Wilson's Creek, said Karyn Phillips, assistant principal at Hickory Hills. She will be Wilson Creek's first principal when the school opens in fall 2005.

Many of the students affected will be from the Battlefield area.

Residents on the south side of Battlefield are in the Republic district, while those on the north side attend Springfield schools, said Judy Stainback, Battlefield alderwoman.

Construction of the $6 million school is being paid for by a $30 million bond issue approved in April 2003, as well as savings and unallocated interest captured after projects were completed from a $30 million 2000 bond issue, according to Springfield Public Schools' Web page.

The general contractor for the new school construction is Flintco Inc., which submitted a bid of almost $6 million to secure the contract. Six general contractors went through a pre-qualification process to submit a bid, but "it turned out we were the only one that bid the project," said Jim Blose, area manager.

Flintco's initial bid of $6.2 million came in high, however. "We were in their total budget, but we were over their construction budget," he said. After meeting with the school district, Flintco adjusted its price downward by nearly $300,000, realizing steel prices and builder's risk insurance costs wouldn't be as costly as first estimated, he said.

Overall, the project presents no significant construction or geologic challenges, Blose said. The project is "built for speed" with its dominant steel frame structure, he said. In area schools, masonry load-bearing walls typically support the roof, but take longer to construct to levels where they can bear this weight, he added.

Phase one of Wilson's Creek 5th-6th Grade School will accommodate 550 students, said Kent Sanders, project architect with Sapp Design Associates Architects PC. There will be 20 classrooms, science rooms, a kitchen, library, music and art room, a multipurpose room, gym, special education room and office area, he said.

According to Sapp's design plans, the school can be expanded with eight more classrooms for 200 more students to reach a total capacity of 600 to 700 students. Exterior amenities will include two soccer fields, a softball field, a playground and walking trails.

Even the earliest student counts of what the school could efficiently handle were revised, Dow said. The initial capacity for Wilson's Creek was going to be 350, he said. "Before we ever got going, it was already going to be full."

While another school isn't currently planned, if another school were to be built right away, it would be in the Rivercut area, Dow said.

Other projects

In addition to the Wilson's Creek construction, electrical and air-conditioning improvements will be done at more than 20 school locations, Dow said. The largest project will be a multimillion dollar Parkview High School renovation.

After all forecasted projects are completed, roughly $2 million will be left over, Dow said, and that sum will be allocated to lesser jobs as needed.