WEST TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV)– The Vigo County School Corporation is officially pursuing two studies that have been discussed for much of the school year.
During Monday’s school board meeting, superintendent Chris Himsel recommended the board approve contracting for a demographics study, along with a facilities study. The demographics research will focus on population and enrollment forecasts for the next decade, while the facilities study will look at each of the schools in the county– and how much it will cost to maintain them.
Himsel said during the meeting that both of these go hand-in-hand to help the corporation moving forward. He said the updated look at facilities will cost around $117,000– much less than the previous study due to work over the past few years.
“I recommend we conduct a facilities study so we can determine the cost of keeping our facilities up to the level of the community’s expectation. That also takes into account the post-COVID market cost and the work that has already been completed since the previous facilities study was conducted, is in the process of being completed or in the planning stages to be completed during the upcoming months,” he said.
The demographics study will include population forecasts for 2025, 2030 and 2035 as well as enrollment forecasts through 2033-34. This will be an updated version– one Himsel thinks is necessary due to “changes in the area” over the past few years.
[An update is completed] usually about every four to eight years. Depending on if there’s big changes, it may be three, four or five years. If there’s smaller changes, it might be eight or nine. We’re kind of in the middle,” he said. “The bigger issue here is we had some changes in the area so we wanted to see what impact of those events has been.”
The corporation will contract with Gibraltar design for the facilities work, while again working with McKibbeon Demographic Research on the demographics study.
