South Sioux City Community Schools Superintendent Dr. Rony Ortega is asking for the community’s help.
At the first of five Cardinal Vision workshops held last Wednesday in the middle school gymnasium, school officials presented information about the school district’s challenges dealing with a growing enrollment and educating those children in buildings that, in some cases, are well past their age of usefulness.
The average age of a school building in the United States is 49 years. Of the SSC district’s seven buildings where children are going to school, the average age of the district’s buildings is at 59 years, led by Covington Elementary, which reached the 100-year mark this year.
Dakota City Elementary is 76 years old, followed by Swett Elementary (64), Lewis & Clark Elementary (64), the high school (56), and middle school (49). Only the district office (46) and the Cardinal and Harney elementary buildings (both 31) are below the average age.
“It’s all concerning,” Dr. Ortega said after Wednesday’s initial workshop, which drew a reporter-estimated 160 local residents. “When we talk about aging facilities and increasing enrollment, those are big concerns. With a 100-year-old building and the youngest at 31, and four of those schools already exceeding capacity, we have no room.”
South Sioux City Community Schools has not built a new building since Cardinal Elementary and Harney Elementary were constructed in 1992. The only other significant construction came when the high school and middle school were connected in 1999.
Many of the buildings are either at or near capacity. Covington, Cardinal and Dakota City elementary schools are all above capacity, and Harney Elementary is expected to reach capacity by 2028.
“We expect to see another 500 kids come to our school district in the next 10 years,” he said, adding to the district’s 3,730-student enrollment.
Finding a place for those kids in the current setup will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, Ortega said.
“We deny every option enrollment we get because we don’t have any room for those kids, and we are sending kids from one school to another to create space where we can,” he said. “I’ve walked the hallways of our schools and it’s just full, it’s not educationally adequate what we are providing our kids.”
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