Students at Mrachek Middle School have to sometimes quietly knock on the doors of three different in-session classes to get back to their own windowless classroom because most of the rooms on the first level of the 40-year-old school have no exterior doors.
And upstairs, the classrooms have no doors at all and no floor-to-ceiling walls because the 900-student, sixth- through eighth-grade middle school at 1955 S. Telluride St. was built as an open plan concept with a loft-style layout upstairs and a spiraled brick labyrinth downstairs.
“Students have to walk into a seventh-grade social studies room, then a seventh-grade science room to get to the art room, which has plastic panels for doors,” said Michelle Davis, principal of Mrachek Middle School. “There are, of course, security concerns upstairs when you don’t have doors on rooms. It’s not conducive to student learning.”
Although the school has seen some construction improvements in the last few years, district planning staff has recommended that it be replaced with a new facility. And that expensive feat may be now possible for the first time in years — if voters approve.
This month, the Aurora Public School Board of Education voted to place a $300 million bond question on the November ballot that would help fund a new Mrachek Middle School that could open in fall 2018.
The district was recently awarded part of that money — $16 million from the Colorado Department of Education’s Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST) program — to rebuild Mrachek. But those funds could only be used if the voters pass the bond this fall, allowing the district to provide a match grant of $24 million for the school.
“We have 40 percent of the money for this project now, and we have been designing the new building for nearly a year,” Davis said. “The $16 million from the state goes away if we don’t have the matching funds. And If the bond passes we will be able to pretty much begin work right away (next spring).”
The bond money would also .
“Being able to help every school in the district is one of the most exciting things about this bond,” said JulieMarie Shepherd Macklin, board of education director for Aurora Public Schools. “Aurora is growing and that growth is not concentrated in a single part of the community, we’re seeing that growth throughout the entire district boundaries.”
The bond would cost homeowners an additional $1.93 per month for every $100,000 of assessed home value.
Aurora Public Schools has not passed a bond since 2008, and in that time enrollment has skyrocketed while necessary infrastructure and technology upgrades have not been able to keep pace. The district has experienced overcrowding at many of its schools because enrollment growth over the last seven years. Nearly one-third of Aurora Public Schools are at or above 90 percent of total capacity, even with mobile classrooms on site.
“Capacity is one of our biggest challenges right now, both in the short-term and long run,” Shepherd Macklin said. “This bond will directly allow the district to alleviate some of those capacity challenges, while making crucial improvements at every single school district wide.”
There is an identified need of about $500 million worth of repairs and improvements at virtually all APS schools.
“We have always had a great rating with bonds and we want to make sure that it’s rated well for all stakeholders,” said board treasurer Barbara Yamrick. “We want to accomplish as much as we can because this is absolutely needed to provide for the best education for our students.”
Overall, the bond would add classroom space at overcrowded schools, repair leaking roofs, replace archaic and dysfunctional heating and cooling systems, add security cameras, upgrade computer technology at every school, renovate and make repairs at the oldest schools and potentially build a new preschool through eighth grade facility and a new sixth through 12th grade facility.
At Mrachek Middle School, all of the sixth graders are in mobile classrooms for their primary classes.
“We needed the mobiles because we can’t really put students in every classroom because the if we put them in the rooms right next to each other it’s too loud and they can’t teach,” Davis said. “Quite honestly, those are our nicest classrooms because they have doors and walls.”