In an earlier post, conversation focused on the “target” enrollment the district was shooting for. That post discussed the idea of setting a target enrollment and then establishing the amount of capacity (or space) needed in the facilities plan.
Critical in this conversation is the ability to determine what the capacity of a given elementary building will be. As discussed in recent posts, the capacity of a building is based on the number of “Units” and the number of “flex” classrooms.
Capacity of a Unit
A “unit” of school is a set of K-5 classrooms, or 6 classrooms. Now we could just take 25 (the highest cap) times 6 to get 150, or we could use the current “caps” (maximum students we would like to have in a classroom). Not to inflate the capacity, let’s use the current caps:
| Grade | “Cap” |
| K | 23 |
| 1 | 23 |
| 2 | 23 |
| 3 | 24 |
| 4 | 25 |
| 5 | 25 |
| Unit | 143 |
This means the capacity of a “unit” is approximately 143. I’m saying approximately because caps are guidelines, not hard and fast rules.
“Flex” Classrooms
One of the purposes for addressing our elementary buildings is because they were not designed for all of our current programming needs. This translates into dedicated spaces for many of the activities that now compete for our “flex” spaces. So how many “flex” classrooms are being considered?
The short answer is that it hasn’t been determined. That said, the number of these has a significant impact on the capacity of a building. So let’s try to find an estimated number.
- Originally, the number of “flex” classrooms was to be 1 per “unit” – that is, a 2-unit building would have 2, and so on. For the proposed plan of 15 units, that would mean 15 “flex” classrooms.
OR
- Current wording that addresses the number of “flex” classrooms states there will be 2-4 of them per building. With 5 buildings, this means between 10 and 20, or using the middle value of 3 we would have 15.
So it appears 15 is a pretty good estimate for the number of “flex” classrooms being considered. With current caps between 23 and 25, it seems safe to use 24 as an average.
Building Capacities
So, to determine an estimate for the capacity of one of the proposed elementary buildings, one should be able to add the capacity of the “units” and add to it the capacity of the “flex” classrooms.
Proposed District-Wide Capacity
Capacity (district) = ( 15 “units” x 143) + ( 15 “flex” classrooms x 24 ) = 2,505
Building Capacities
- 2-Unit = ( 2 x 143 ) + ( 2 x 24 ) = 334
- 3-Unit = ( 3 x 143 ) + ( 3 x 24 ) = 501
- 4-Unit = ( 4 x 143 ) + ( 4 x 24 ) = 668
So, to confirm the District-level capacity by using the number of each size school (see chart below) the capacity of the plan being proposed is 2,505 students.
| Size | Capacity | In Plan | Capacity | ||
| 2-Unit | 334 | x | 1 | = | 334 |
| 3-Unit | 501 | x | 3 | = | 1,503 |
| 4-Unit | 668 | x | 1 | = | 668 |
| Total Capacity | 2,505 |
Closing Thoughts
Had we used 25 or 23 instead of 24 for the number of students in a flex” classroom, the capacity would increase or decrease – respectively. Had we used 25 and the cap for “unit” classrooms, the capacity would have been higher.
With that understanding, the above method brings the estimated capacity in the proposed long-range facilities plan to 2,505. With the number in hand, we should now go back and compare that to the “target” capacity.
Dr. Dave
