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Consultant: district has roughly 7,300 excess seats; elementary, middle and high schools below ideal utilization
Summary
A capacity and utilization study presented May 13 found the Iowa City Community School District has about 7,300 excess seats across its buildings and program-use rates below typical targets — roughly 62% at elementary, 67% at middle and 68% at high schools — based on current scheduling and load-factor assumptions.
The Iowa City Community School District board on May 13 received a capacity and feasibility presentation that combined facility use with enrollment projections. A consultant told the board the data show roughly 7,300 excess seats districtwide under current program-use assumptions.
"This capacity report, utilization report is a complement to [the enrollment projections]," the consultant said, explaining the distinction between design capacity (how a building was intended to be used) and program or use capacity (how the building is being used today, including support rooms and scheduling). The presentation used a five- to ten-year projection horizon to calculate utilization under current scheduling.
Key findings presented to the board: - Districtwide program capacity is about 13,755 seats with roughly 21,000 seats currently filled, leaving approximately 7,300 seats of excess capacity across the district. - Elementary program utilization averaged about 62% (approximately 1,400 surplus elementary seats), middle schools averaged about 67% (roughly 1,600 surplus middle-school seats), and high schools averaged about 68% (about 2,200 surplus seats among traditional high schools), under the consultants’ scheduling and load assumptions. - Scheduling factors used in the analysis: 88% for middle schools and 86% for high schools to account for rooms not used 100% of the day; elementary rooms are treated differently because core classrooms stay with a single teacher.
The consultant walked directors through examples showing how design capacity (total classroom-type spaces) can differ from program capacity when nine spaces in an elementary building are used for interventions or counseling instead of core classrooms. For example, Garner Elementary was presented as designed for 28 classroom spaces (design capacity roughly 784 under the consultant’s load factors) but in actual use had 19 core classrooms and nine support rooms for a program capacity of about 548 and a corresponding utilization near 46% under projected enrollment assumptions.
Directors pressed on whether preschool was included (the presenter said she would verify) and whether support rooms included special-education spaces (the presenter confirmed that many yellow-coded support rooms represent pull-out programs and special-education use). Board members and staff discussed whether lower utilization reflects class-size choices, the presence of more support spaces, or both; staff replied it is a combination of smaller class sizes in some buildings and use of rooms for support services.
The presentation did not recommend closures or automatic actions; the consultant and superintendent framed the report as a data set to inform choices about where the district might invest, consolidate resources, or seek community input. The board discussed next steps for community engagement and said staff would return with refined scenarios and more detailed FMP 2.2 costing.
