Concerns from parents of students at three of Chattanooga's most sought-after magnet schools dominated community discussions about Hamilton County's updated facilities recommendations Tuesday night.
Why move Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences from its historic site on Third Street? What would happen to the integrity of Chattanooga High Center for Creative Arts if the program was expanded to grades K-12? What about Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts?
These were some of the top questions posed to district officials by the audience of more than 150 people in Tyner Academy's cafeteria Tuesday. The meeting was the first of two planned this week to gather community input on a new set of recommendations for a 10-year facilities plan presented by MGT Consulting Group to the school board earlier this month.
After a quick introduction to the changes from Mike Raisor, senior vice president of MGT Consulting Group, attendees of the meeting spent more than an hour in small groups led by Hamilton County Schools officials to discuss the pros and cons of the proposed solutions to the district's $1.36 billion deferred maintenance and facilities problems.
The newest recommendation presents an $857 million plan that recommends closing 11 school buildings, moving Barger Academy of Fine Arts and CCA into a renovated or rebuilt building on the current Brainerd High School site and moving Brainerd High students into Dalewood Middle School's building, but the plan doesn't present a solution for CSAS or CSLA.
That has Michael Laymon concerned. His child goes to CSAS and he is worried the district will revert back to the original plan and move CSAS onto the Brainerd High site, as well as create what district officials called "a magnet corridor" and expand the size of the school.
"The success of certain programs is based on the fact that they are small and are at small locations," Laymon said during the small group discussion. "If we're discussing the effectiveness of this, too, that's what makes it effective."
CCA families are also worried about moving CCA away from downtown and its connection to the arts scene and expanding the school to include elementary grades.
Students in grades K-5 are too young, said CCA senior Alex Laudeman, they can't be expected to audition the way applicants currently do in order to attend the fine arts magnet school - one of the top schools in the state.
Many parents echoed Laudeman's concerns that a K-12 school would allow students to be chosen by lottery, rather than by talent or passion.
Jakob Dejong, a freshman at CCA, said between the community support and state-of-the-art facilities at CCA, the school doesn't need anything new.
CSLA parents, who have been vocal about their school's dilapidated condition for years, are also worried that once again the K-6 magnet will be pushed to the bottom of the list. Renovating the school has been on the district's radar since the last external facilities report completed in the 1990s and the county commission even allocated part of a $110 million bond issue for capital projects towards combining Tyner Middle and High schools to make room for CSLA in 2017 - but the project has not yet come to fruition.
Chief Operations Officer Justin Robertson told a group of parents that the district is looking at a variety of alternatives and proposals for CSLA, but district officials are mum to what those options might be.
Robertson did acknowledge Tuesday that the community feedback was passionate - and needed.
"I thought there were some ideas that came out that we need to consider," Robertson told the Times Free Press. "The number of people who came out and the level of engagement needs to continue. It's pretty obvious that we need to pay attention to programming. This isn't a programming conversation, this is a building conversation."
Superintendent Bryan Johnson told the crowd that the process of developing a 10-year facilities plan was nowhere near over, even once the board receives final recommendations from MGT in March.
"The process won't end in March," he said.
The school board will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Brown Middle School for a facilities and zoning work session ahead of the second community forum at 6 p.m., also at Brown.
Contact Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.