Lombardy Elementary school needs to be expanded, Brandywine Superintendent Mark Holodick told the school board at its Jan. 25 meeting.
With 500 students this year, the school on Foulk Road is already well over its 409 student capacity. And projected 2010-2011 enrollment is 550 students, Holodick said.
"I anticipate enrollment will continue to climb," Holodick told the board. "The school can't handle an additional 50 or more kids."
Enrollment at Lombardy has been expanding because more students were put into the school's feeder pattern after the district closed Darley Road Elementary and Hanby Middle School last year. Also, the district reconfigured all elementary schools this year to include kindergarten through fifth grade students.
Lombardy is already the only Brandywine elementary school closed to choice students because of the overcrowding.
“Lombardy is the smallest elementary school in the district," Holodick said. "An expansion would make it more comparable to the other elementary schools in the district.”
Holodick said it was too early to have a timetable for the expansion project.
$2 million for transportation yard
The board also approved moving forward with a $2 million purchase of its transportation yard on Edgemoor Avenue in an old Purina plant.
The district currently leases the yard from owner Frank Byar. When the district passed its 2005 referendum, the board said they were planning on building a new facility. After ownership of the yard changed last year, the new owner showed interest in selling the site to the district, according to Chief Financial Officer David Blowman.
“We’re going to buy the site and renovate the facility rather than buy a different site, Blowman said.
Blowman said they are moving forward this school year and that will terminate their lease, which would expire in 2011.
| Next Meeting Brandywine School District Board of Education will meet at 7 p.m., Monday, Feb. 22 at the district offices on Pennsylvania Ave., Claymont. |
School calendar proposed
Brandywine students will start the 2010/2011 school year on August 30 or 31 - unless they attend Maple Lane Elementary, according to the first reading of next year's school calendar presented to the board Monday night.
Assistant Superintendent Judy Curtis said Maple Lane implemented a "balanced calendar" a few years ago, which extends the school year into both August and June in a three semester format with shorter breaks in between each semester. Maple Lane students will start school on August 10 and have July off like the rest of the district's students.
“About five or six years ago they started the balanced calendar as school improvement,” Curtis said. “They found a lot of kids lost learning over the summer and they were doing a lot of re-teaching and review in fall.”
The calendar will be up for final review and approval by the board in February. Items on the calendar are still subject to change.
