News & Announcements

Study of Our Campus: Findings and Deliberations

By Mike Sekel, Board President

During the All Community Meeting on January 27, 2018, Mell Lawrence and Clare Van Montfrans of Mell Lawrence Architects presented preliminary findings on their study of the Austin Waldorf School campus. The presentation began with a summary of information obtained from the focus groups conducted last year by ISPG.

The community understands that it costs money to enhance or expand program offerings and there are, primarily, two ways to accomplish that. Tuition can be increased to be more aligned with other private schools in the area, or we can increase the number of students. During the focus groups, the community’s expressed preference was increasing the size of the student body.

Secondly, it was noted that the community would greatly prefer that K-12 be kept together on the same campus.

Lastly, it was noted that we would prefer to stay on our current campus. This last point was derived in an absence of information as to what a new campus on another property might look like, where it might be, and how much it might cost. In light of these preferences, Mell Lawrence Architects were hired over the summer to help us understand what our campus is able to support and to consider what impact expansion might have on our current campus. This information is preparing us to create a Master Site Plan.

Clare and Mell emphasized that with any change, there are trade-offs. Mell recalled that when he first came to AWS in the late 80s, the school was nestled deep in the woods. When he returned in the early 2000s, he found dramatic changes to the campus with the cleared field and larger buildings. Despite these changes, he still finds the school charming and very nature-friendly.

Expanding our current campus raises many questions about the future. Currently, all of our buildings are single story which consumes much more of our precious impervious cover allotment. Our campus is spread out with roads and parking that consume even more of our impervious cover allotment. Currently, we have a very limited amount of impervious cover left that we can use.

If we were to increase the student population in a manner consistent with projections, we would use all of our impervious cover just for roads and parking. Perhaps we could choose to not increase parking and emphasize alternative forms of transportation. More students mean more classroom space, but we do not have enough room to continue to add one story buildings. Perhaps we should consider growing upwards. Sports fields, such as soccer, track, or baseball fields, will not fit on our current property without major changes to the look and feel of the campus. Whatever we do will involve some form of trade-off. Which of these trade-offs will be most conducive to our success in the future? These are the questions that our community is striving to answer.

The architects’ report will propose some alternative stylings of the campus for us to consider and will be ready in two months. In the meantime, we are having conversations with our neighbors inquiring about the availability of their property to add to ours. We are keeping our eyes open for nearby properties that may become available that would be suitable. This information will help us as we grapple with the major question facing expansion right now. Do we stay on this campus; do we relocate the entire operation or; do we open a second campus and have an undetermined range of grades on each campus? We want to prepare a sketch of each option with estimated costs and pros and cons for each. In the meantime, the faculty and staff are reviewing our current facilities, spaces, pathways, and programs to identify what we want to retain and what may be modified for the future. With this information, we can move forward with the creation of a master site plan and a detailed expansion plan.

After the expansion presentation, we spent time discussing questions from the community around what they heard. We continue to explore the question of how to grow our community while prioritizing an excellent Waldorf education and the sense of community that we all cherish.