Cumberland Schools Planning For Future With New Facility Report

Cumberland County School administrators want to create a better facility usage report to help the system plan for growth.

School capacity numbers, especially for those facilities built in the 1980s and earlier, do not reflect modern educational guidelines, such as smaller class sizes.

Director of Schools Billy Stepp said the system is working with Upland Design Group to pinpoint the county’s needs over the next one, three, five and seven years.

“So we’re looking at what our actual numbers are at each school to predict growth and where we might have to start planning for other facilities or additional facilities at different locations,” Stepp said. “We’re also looking at a maintenance plan also. Upland is going to go through all of our property, facilities, everything that has to do with the operations side of all of our schools so that we can better budget for what we need as far as growth or replacing equipment.”

In addition to smaller class sizes, the programming needs of schools have also changed. Stepp said programs like career and technical classes take different facilities today.

“There’s a lot of different things being offered to students so we need space for that, more space for that,” Stepp said. “So that’s kind of why we’re looking and planning.”

At a recent school board meeting, Stepp said he had asked principals to look at every space in their buildings to really understand what was being used and what was available. Stepp said this planning process will build upon that data as well as earlier work done by school administration.

“They had a plan in place from seven or eight years ago,” Stepp said. “So we’re kind of updating and trying to make it current now for where we are now in the schools. So, yeah, we’re just wanting to update it and know where everything is and hopefully have a good long term plan.”

Stepp said he hopes to have the plan finished, noting it should be a dynamic document, before the budgeting process begins. That will allow the school board to consider its capital strategy going forward.