Construction for the new Auburn City Schools high school is on schedule with less than a year until it fills with students, and ACS recently voted to accelerate plans for a new elementary school.
The new $71.6 million high school, which is more than halfway built, is on track to be complete by late April 2017 and open for the 2017-18 school year, and the construction of a new elementary school of Richland Road will now be pushed up a year. Both projects are part of a system-wide plan to address overcapacity as enrollment has climbed over the years.
“For the first time in Auburn City School history, we are over 8,500 students system-wide,” said Daniel Chesser, ACS public relations specialist. “That is the highest enrollment that we’ve had in the history of our school system, and we are the fastest-growing school system [in the state] in the past five years.”
On average, ACS enrollment has grown by about 400 students per year over the past four years and is over capacity at 4 of 11 campuses and reaching capacity at three others. This year the system has grown by more than 260 students.
The new 247,000-square-foot Auburn High School on East Samford Avenue will be able to hold 2,200 students and will occupy nearly half of about 101 acres of campus land, with the remaining acreage dedicated to future expansion.
Auburn High currently holds 1,800–2,000 students, Chesser said, and the goal is to have about 1,800 students in the upcoming school.
"The class sizes should be smaller than they would be if the current high school was to accommodate 2,200 students," said ACS Superintendent Karen DeLano. "This allows teachers to better meet the needs of individual students."
The new building will have a three-story main academic wing, a career tech-focused wing that connects to a gymnasium and a performing arts center.
"There will be spaces designed for them to study, eat, socialize and gather in a safe and comfortable environment," DeLano added. "The career technical courses will work in spaces specifically designed for the purposes of the technical skills and standards."
The campus will also have three entrances — East University Drive, East Samford Avenue and Glenn Avenue — which would separate bus, student and visitor traffic.
Funding for the schools comes from the city’s General Fund appropriation for ACS as well as funds from the 5-mill fund, or city taxes funneled to special projects such as recreation and infrastructure development.
Construction of the high school brings with it shifts in student distribution and class structure.
It will house grades 10–12, converting the old high school to an 8th- and 9th-grade junior high school. Auburn Junior High School would then become a 7th-grade school and Drake Middle School would become a 6th-grade school.
The school system has budgeted $6 million for the renovations of the three schools.
The new high school will also come equipped with new technology and strive to reflect a college class structure.
“We’re going to have a floating system, which will allow us to get the maximum use out of the building," Chesser said. “So teachers will have their own offices, just like professors have their own offices, and they’ll teach in a kind of rotating class system.”
Sixty percent of Auburn High’s 2016 graduates went to a four-year college, Chesser said, and 33 percent went to a two-year college.
“We live in such a diverse community with so many different walks of life and needs and interests that we try to be proactive with our students and prepare them for the real world,” he said.
Though the new Auburn High would help alleviate growing numbers at the secondary level, the school system is also focusing on the same issue in the elementary schools.
The ACS Facility Plan 2024, a 10-year plan of which the new school construction is a part of, outlines plans for a new $13.9 million elementary school, which would be completed in 2018 instead of 2019 as initially planned.
The school system purchased about 275 acres of land behind and across from the Yarborough Tennis Center on Richland Road for the upcoming 600-capacity school.
The layout would most likely reflect that of existing elementary school campuses, Chesser said, with a front office, lobby, library and four branches of classrooms with a multipurpose area in the back.
Expediting the construction process because of overcrowding, ACS hopes to break ground next summer and foresee the school housing grades 3-5, pairing it with a K-2 Richland Elementary.
“Those plans are still very fluid just because we’re talking about a year or two down the road,” Chesser said.
Tracie West, ACS Board of Education president, said fashioning the new elementary school after the existing ones makes financial sense for the school system and taxpayers.
"What we're doing now works so well," she said, which doesn't warrant any major shifts for the future elementary school.
West also credited the system's growth to the city's attractive quality of life, naming Auburn University a "driver" in quality of life and education along with the city's ability to attract industry and businesses.
"People want to raise their families here," she said, adding that she expects the school system to continue growing.
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