Consultants from Gibraltar Design and district staff told the Vigo County School Corporation oversight committee on June 23 that long-term demographic trends and building-condition data point to a need to rethink school attendance areas and capital priorities.

Dr. Himsel, speaking for the district, summarized a demographic forecast by Dr. Jerry McKibben and said the county has been losing student enrollment for more than two decades. "The demographic forecast indicates that this trend will likely continue unless a significant change in our community occurs," he said, noting the county’s population is aging and that the average number of children per family is currently below replacement levels.

Jim Thompson of Gibraltar Design outlined the firm’s methodology: building-by-building inventories of site, mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems, condition assessments and life-expectancy estimates, and a simplified three-tier condition rating to make results easier to interpret. Thompson used Farrington Grove as an example and said the matrix approach lets the district aggregate needs across schools to identify bundled projects.

Chris Kingery, Gibraltar’s chief education principal, described the firm’s learning-environment analysis and staff engagement. He said the district’s staff survey drew about 1,300 responses of roughly 2,200 staff members districtwide and identified recurring needs such as additional classroom outlets for devices, safer main entrances, more small-group instructional spaces and makerspaces. "That benchmark helps us ask: what would it take to get a building to 650 (elementary) or to get a middle school to optimal size?" Kingery said.

Presenters framed possible next steps: translate the condition and program benchmarks into scenarios for renovation, consolidation or new construction and present those options at a follow-up meeting on Monday. They provided preliminary cost context: "On average it's about $1,000,000 per building that we need to be doing proactive maintenance," Dr. Himsel said, noting 23 buildings implies roughly $23,000,000 of needs while the district currently has about $9,000,000 available for preventive maintenance.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about the matrix visuals, what yellow coding meant, and whether completed work was reflected. Thompson answered that yellow denoted in-progress work and that some highlighted items may have been recently addressed. A public commenter asked whether scenarios implied a new high school could be open by 2029–30; presenters responded that some scenarios include new facilities but that designs are intended to be flexible.

The oversight committee will consider the consultant scenarios and trade-offs in its next meeting and use the data and benchmarks to guide decisions on attendance-area adjustments, programming benchmarks and capital planning.