Issues at Miller Middle School discussed during community meeting

T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Pete Perez, the construction manager for Boyd Jones Construction, tells a group of attendees at the Wednesday evening informational meeting about possible solutions to fix the problems at Miller Middle School.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a series of articles regarding the Marshalltown Community School District Miller Middle School project and the Wednesday meeting addressing it.)

There are a plethora of challenges at Miller Middle School, and the Marshalltown Community School District is taking steps to overcome those hurdles.

District leadership brought in Brad Leeper and Brian Lane from Invision Architecture and Pete Perez from Boyd Jones Construction to share the challenges and possible solutions. The information was provided Wednesday evening during the first of more meetings regarding the project. The meetings are being used to get information to the public and ensure the best decision is made.

Leeper presented a timeline taking the project through 2024. Indicated on the timeline, another meeting will be held in June, and a recommendation will be presented to the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education. Communications regarding a possible campaign will begin this summer, and depending on the decision regarding what to do about Miller, a vote will be held in November.

He said they have met with a project task force four times.

“We’ve gotten really good feedback,” Leeper said.

Perez addressed the year Miller was built — 1925. In that time, a lot more expectations have been placed on students and educators, he said.

“Curriculum and instruction has evolved drastically,” Perez said.

He said an existing condition assessment of the facility has been completed, and many things were found. Maps of the three levels at Miller — lower, main and upper — were broken down into priority needs. Some of the highest needs include spaces such as the commons area on the lower level; undersized classrooms on main; and a poorly-equipped science room on the upper.

The challenges at Miller include:

Lack of space in the 167,802-square-foot facility, built on 6.09 acres.

“The feeling (that) we are tight is real,” Leeper said.

He said the school has had to utilize storage areas for other purposes, only because that is where space was available.

Out of 13 departmental space use categories, Miller only has above average square feet in five — specialty, athletics, auditorium, building support and circulation. Leeper said the auditorium space is not one normally found in middle schools, and added it really is a community resource.

“It’s a great asset,” he said.

Classrooms are small in size which limits education opportunities for the 782 students and affects adaptability. The average square foot of a classroom is 900, and Miller’s average is 720. Perez said the enrollment trend of slightly less than 800 students is important when considering the future of the school.

“You saw some of those [classrooms] hold 25 to 30 students,” he said. “When you think about how kids learn in those environments, they’re tough.”

Additional areas with a lack of space include hallways and stairs, leading to crowding and congestion between classes; a tight building entryway which is considered a choke point; the commons area where students eat lunch and breakfast is one-third the size it should be and; and the school administration area, which is small without enough meeting space;

• Needed updates in the media center, the kitchen and bathroom entries and exits

• Inadequate heating and cooling;

• The aesthetics need to be updated;

• Students need a place in the “heart” of the building where they can go before school, and outside of the classrooms;

• The historic auditorium is in poor condition and is underutilized;

• Renovation is needed in the gym and locker rooms, and the wrestling area, for boys and girls, has unmet needs;

• There is a constant presence of standing water and moisture in the lower level of the facility.

Leeper said they spoke with hundreds of people — community and school leaders, parents, businesses, the task force and students — and learned how important Miller is to Marshalltown.

“This community has been through some stuff,” he said.

School board members said they want to look to the future while respecting the past, and Leeper said the task force wants to “be bold.” During the presentation, a spectrum slide was shown in which the task force was asked how bold the project vision should be. One spectrum end was “status quo” and the other was “bleeding edge.” The task force provided an answer extremely close to the latter.

“I’m not sure I have been to [a task force] that was on the edge,” he said. “That’s exciting.”

Leeper also spoke about identified community drivers, which included community pride, innovation, value, diversity, adaptability and flexibility, safety and security and small learning communities.

“We know the future of education probably looks different, and none of us knows what that is,” he said. “I’ll tell you in 1925, nobody imagined [a smartphone.] What’s going to happen in the next 100 years?”

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Contact Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.

: T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Pete Perez, the construction manager for Boyd Jones Construction, tells a group of attendees at the Wednesday evening informational meeting about possible solutions to fix the problems at Miller Middle School.