Riverside’s School Board has adopted a new facilities plan and approved adding classrooms to Buckeye Elementary School in split votes to close out 2024. The resolution expressing support for the Buckeye project states that it would add approximately 12 classrooms and a gym to the school. ThenDesign Architecture representative Ryan Schmit presented two concept plans for the addition. Both concepts would involve adding 12 or 13 classrooms to the back of the building, where the modular units are currently located. One concept plan would add the gym behind those classrooms, while the other would add the gym in front of the school’s right side. Board members Denise Brewster, Scott Fishel and Dennis Keeney voted in favor of the addition. “It is direly needed to upgrade that elementary school,” Keeney said. “It’s in a great location, it serves a large portion of the northwest side of our district, and they’re very much cramped for space there, and so new space is needed.” Brewster and Fishel mentioned that both Buckeye and nearby Melridge Elementary School use modular units outside of the main school buildings for classroom space. “We’ve had these kids in the trailers for 15 years,” Fishel said. “And that’s a travesty. I think Ms. Brewster talked about one of them that was falling apart so badly there was mold in the wall. I know a worker that was working over there and said he knelt down on the carpet and his knees were soaking wet because the carpet was soaking wet.” “These trailers were not meant to be in service for this long,” he added. Board members Belinda Grassi and Lori Krenisky voted against the resolution. Both of them said that they did not disagree about the need for space, but objected to the addition being placed for a vote at the same meeting that it was formally introduced to the board. “If that’s the first time we’re seeing it, that is not adequate discussion at the table in order to move forward with a multimillion dollar project,” Grassi said. “Again, I don’t disagree that we need to do something with Buckeye, we’re saying we need to have the right conversation,” Krenisky added. Grassi and Fishel both sat on the district’s buildings, grounds and operations committee at the time. Fishel introduced the proposal to the committee a couple of days before the board meeting and discussed the timing of the vote then. “In order to successfully execute the Buckeye addition, the time to break ground would be immediately after school ends, and so the architect is saying he really needs to get approved on this in January so he can have his work done so that the construction company can go ahead and break ground in June,” he said. Grassi and Krenisky also said that the board had also not discussed funding for the proposed addition. “We haven’t had any conversation at the table about the process, the funding, what it’s going to look like,” Grassi said. Fishel responded that there would be “plenty of opportunity” for discussion, and that the district could use revenue from its permanent improvement fund to seek a loan. The Buckeye addition was one of the items included in a facilities plan that the board approved at the same meeting in a 4-1 vote, with Grassi voting against. A draft version of the facilities plan was introduced at a November board meeting, though the proposed Buckeye addition in that version of the plan only included eight classrooms. The new plan stated that after the addition, Buckeye will have three to five classrooms specifically for kindergarten students. It will leave the building with “modernized classrooms, two lab spaces, media center, cafeteria and gymnasium.” It also proposed adding air-conditioning to LaMuth Middle School and replacing the high school’s turf field as part of regular maintenance over the next five years. The second segment of the plan, which would cover the following five years, includes proposals for expanding LaMuth, re-envisioning the Riverside Campus and adding a new secondary school building. Grassi acknowledged the work that Superintendent Chris Rateno and community members put into the plan. “I don’t believe that the facility plan that is out reflects adequately what the public wanted, and I believe the facility plan was then derailed by the fact that we voted as a board 3-2 to add on to Riverview,” she said, referencing a September board vote to add eight classrooms to Riverview Elementary School. Though Krenisky voted in favor of the facilities plan, she said Rateno had had to “pivot” after the board voted to expand Riverview instead of LaMuth Middle School in September. “I think you’ve done the best of what you can with what you’ve been handed, which is very hard for me because I think that there was a better plan out there in the first place, but I do appreciate the hard work you put into it,” she told Rateno. Rateno said that the planned work at Buckeye leaves the district with “a good three modernized, large elementary schools that are on the same plan.” Keeney said that the plan “gives us a good foundation for the next few years.” He added that while the proposals were “not set in stone,” they would provide “good talking points for further discussion.”