The Rockwood Board of Education authorized funds to hire an independent firm to analyze and prepare reports addressing school building capacity and enrollment trends on Sept. 5.

At the board meeting, Tim Rooney, chief financial and legislative officer, shared that the district needs to determine the maximum and functional capacities of schools, and have a comprehensive analysis of enrollment patterns to create five-year projections of student enrollment.

“We will look at the capacity of our buildings in relation to how many students are in certain zoning areas,” Rooney said. “The student projections will tell us roughly how many new students move in and out of the district, and we’ll be comparing those projections against the configurations of schools.”

Rooney said it is essential to know these figures because “student projections are important in determining how much funding we get from the state and deciding facilities’ needs.”

To establish maximum capacity of a school, the district determines how many students a school could have if every room were used as a classroom, Rooney said.

“If we used only maximum capacity as a standard, art teachers would not have dedicated rooms for work,” Rooney said. “There would be no specific spaces for curriculum sections.”

According to their website, the company performing the study, RSP and Associates, provides boundary, demographic, enrollment, facility planning, facility staffing, and site analyses, and builds strategic initiatives that move school districts into the places they, and their communities, want to be.

“We chose RSP because, when we sent out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to invite firms to provide information, four responded and tested well,” Rooney said. “RSP gave us a price range from $43,000 to $52,000, the lowest range, and they’d had a lot of experience in the Midwest, so they were the clear choice.”

Principal Dr. Greg Mathison said past projections have been fairly accurate – what’s unpredictable is the families who transfer into districts, Mathison said.

“In the past, the school has been so big, but we’ve never exceeded capacity,” Mathison said. “We’ve just gotten close. Since we’ve been able to open up new rooms because of Library construction, we’ve been able to take limited choice students again.”

Limited choice allows students to enroll in any public school provided the school has not reached its maximum capacity number for students.

“It’s a typical study,” Mathison said. “We’re just making sure facilities are used in the most efficient way.”

Sarah Hawkinson, junior, said the facilities are not being used efficiently.

“I think we need traffic lanes and stoplights in the hallways right now,” Hawkinson said. “MHS is too crowded. There’s way too much pushing and shoving in the halls. Classes are a decent size, but in the classes where you need more hands on attention – like my math class, which has 30 people – it’s harder to get your questions answered.”

Brian Sellenriek, senior, agreed.

“The school is very crowded, especially on the second floor,” Sellenriek said. “My parents said that the school’s been adding on since day one. They may just have to build a new school.”

Katarina Weis, junior, said she hates the crowdedness.

“Right when school ends, there’s literally a standstill on the stairway on the second floor,” Weis said. “And the overcrowding in classrooms really depends on the class. My physics class only has like 14 people, but I have 30 kids in government. It’s hard for the teacher to have everyone’s attention at once, and we’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.”

According to the Rockwood website, although the report will not target necessary building modifications, the information, along with new building standards, will help identify deficiencies in instructional space. RSP and Associates will recommend changes to balance building capacity with the anticipated number of students attending the school, the website said.