New Ten Year Plan Aims To Modernize and Expand Schools Across District
By Shayna Kapadia | Staff Writer
The FUSD typically plans five years into the future regarding goals for education and how they will carry out these goals. Currently, they are planning to upgrade and modernize the forty two campuses in the district so as to accommodate the increase in student body as well as to integrate new technologies to the curriculum.
Although plans haven’t been finalized, the district has been having meetings to discuss possible changes that can be made. The main concern is having enough space to fit the increasing number of students.
“Irvington High School was built to accommodate about 1600 students” said Ms. Smoot, “and by next year we should have close to 2300 students” .
The increase of the student body leaves classrooms unable to provide adequate space for students to work.
“We have a 208 member marching band but our band room seats about 45 students,” says Ms. Smoot “It really doesn’t fit them.”
The district is also addressing possible ways to modernize the school.
“They’ve talked about flexible learning centers where every wall is a whiteboard and chairs and desks are on wheels,” explained Ms. Smoot. “There are lots of different ideas”.
The campuses in our district were built anywhere from thirty five to one-hundred years ago and, besides slight modifications, such as our new cafeteria and the expansion of Valhalla, there hasn’t been comprehensive construction to Irvington’s campus or any other ones in our district.
The district hired a company to do a needs assessment of all the schools in our district to see if the campuses were adequate in providing for the needs of the students. This assessment also gave the district an estimate of the cost of refurbishing all the schools.
“And now…they’re going to… present that plan to the voters and hope to get a bond measure on the ballot.” Ms. Smoot continues, “And hope that Fremont voters will contribute with property taxes to fund the school upgrades.”
Some Irvington students are concerned about the use of the funds.
“It’s an interesting idea, but I have more concerns about the basics that were covering,” said sophmore Dannah Shreim. “Are the teachers paid enough? Do we have enough staff to teach the students? We need to worry about more stuff like that as opposed to modernizing and moving on into the future.”
Other students are all for the idea. “It’ll benefit students later on in the future, and it will be sustainable.” said junior Diane Perez.
Some parents are skeptical about providing funds for a school that their children will not be attending in ten years. To those concerns, Ms. Smoot responds, “It’s better for everybody when our schools look good and can accommodate the type of learning that we have and prepares them for the future.” She believes that upgraded schools that can cater to the student’s needs will not only help the students but the community by improving property values and decreasing the crime rate.
