Baldwin-Whitehall holds hearing to discuss Paynter closing, new school

Baldwin-Whitehall leaders are moving forward with plans to tear down W.R. Paynter Elementary School to make way for a new $48 million, 48-classroom elementary facility.

The new school will address the district’s growing needs for added space, while temporarily requiring the relocation of students, leaders say.

Board members Feb. 12 held a public hearing to gather community input on the closure of Paynter for the 2020-21 school year to allow for construction to begin. There were roughly a dozen people in attendance, not counting administrators. No one spoke at the hearing, which lasted less than 10 minutes.

Board members likely will vote in May on the closure of the school.

Plans are to move all 800 students attending Paynter to J.E. Harrison Middle School starting in 2020-21, Superintendent Randal Lutz said during the hearing.

Seventh and eighth-graders at Harrison, then, will move to Baldwin High School during construction. All sixth-graders in the district will remain at Harrison, which will be renamed Harrison Educational Center.

“There’s been an incredible amount of planning up until this point, and an incredible amount of planning still has to happen — because the most finite details have to be worked out,” Lutz told the Trib after the hearing.

District leaders have been analyzing projected growth in Baldwin-Whitehall for the last several years.

A demographic study was completed in 2018 that showed the district enrollment likely will grow to 5,500 students by 2027, Lutz said. The current district enrollment is about 4,600.

Enrollment increases have even been higher than the projections, Lutz said.

“The most concerning area was at the elementary level, which projected total student enrollment across all three of our elementary schools at nearly 400 students more than our current school capacities,” he said.

Paynter, which was built in 1969 as a middle school, was deemed “in poor condition,” by HHSDR, which completed a feasibility study of the district’s schools, Lutz said.

District leaders reviewed several options for the Paynter site, which included a renovation and addition to the school. That would have cost in the mid-$50 million range, Lutz said.

The district applied for and was entered into the state reimbursement program for construction projects for the Paynter site.

“Failure to build on that site at this time would result in the district losing the ability to claim that state reimbursement,” Lutz said.

The goal is to close Paynter at the end of this school year. Packing and moving of equipment will occur during the summer months, with demolition of the building set to occur in the late fall/early winter of the 2020-21 school year.

Construction likely will begin in the spring of 2021 and will take about two years.

The district plans to open the new school for the 2023-24 school year.

One concern Lutz said district leaders have heard about the project is why other schools will be disrupted for the construction of the new elementary school.

“The enrollment growth at Paynter is not the problem,” Lutz said. “It’s a district problem, as capacities in all of our elementary schools have reached maximum levels.”

Paynter, he said, “actually holds the solution, resulting in the long-range improvements for all children.”

Details for the transition still are being worked out.

School start times at some buildings might need to be tweaked during construction.

Seventh- and eighth-graders likely will have dedicated areas at the high school for their academic core classes. However, the superintendent said some areas, such as the library, cafeteria and physical education facilities, will overlap.

“We’re still refining those plans,” he said.

The design of the new school is still being worked out, Lutz said.

District leaders have toured other new facilities in the region to gather ideas.

“Planning for this transition is actively occurring,” Lutz said.

The district plans to dedicate a space on its website to the transition details and construction as the project moves forward, the superintendent said.

“It’s exciting,” he said about the opportunity to build a new school. “I think it’s great for the community and a great resource for our children.”