The newest school building in District 66 is Westgate Elementary School, which was rebuilt after being destroyed by a tornado. The reconstruction included a tornado shelter in addition to the original floor plan.

Westgate was rebuilt in 1975, almost 40 years ago. With all buildings in the district being more than 40 years old, the facilities are due for renovations and remodels.

Thursday, April 3, the Westside school board hosted a town hall meeting to inform the public on the districts’ long-term plan for the district building changes. The district hired Omaha architectural firm DLR Group to assess the facilities and propose long term solutions. The school board held two meetings in March, on the 10 and the 24, to release all of the findings from DLR group. The town hall meeting was organized to hear feedback from the public.

Westside Superintendent Blane McCann gave a presentation on the long term facilities changes at the town hall meeting. The presentation included costs, potential solutions and the visioning goal of the project.

DLR Group projected the cost to be from $89 – $214 million for long term changes and updates. The potential solutions they proposed were: remodeling facilities, building new schools to replace existing ones, or potentially reconfiguring grade levels.

They reported that Swanson, Oakdale and Loveland elementary schools are in need of being rebuilt, and the district announced that it is leaning towards building a new school on Swanson’s land that will accommodate both the students of Swanson and Loveland, which will then allow the district to close down Loveland and move the students to Swanson.

For the middle school, McCann noted that the maximum capacity of the school is 900 students, and they are currently at 960 students. To reduce the population at the middle school, the district either wants to add another middle school and reconfigure grade levels to include sixth graders in the middle schools, or complete another addition to the school to increase it’s size.

At the high school, the DLR group reported again, in addition to previous findings in past studies, that the high school is in need of a new main gym and swimming pool. But McCann noted that if the district were to do this, then the city of Omaha would most likely require additional parking at the high school, which would most likely be a parking garage on the West Lot.

After the presentation, the public was invited to ask questions or voice concerns about the proposed plans. The main topic that came up was the concern with closing down Loveland and merging its students with Swanson’s. Loveland parents were concerned about the schools increasing in size and having larger populations. They mentioned that their children have a sense of ownership of their school because it is small, and they think that would be lost by doubling the size of the school.

McCann answered this by telling them that the student to teacher ratio would not change by creating a merger school, but the entire population would obviously increase. 

Loveland parents strongly suggested that the district consider a vertical option to build an additional floor on the school for it to remain open in the future. But this does not address the drop off and pick up and parking issues that most schools in the district face.

During the presentation, McCann also mentioned that the district wants to create a task force to pursue this large project in order to engage many different community members in the planning processes to ensure that the interests of the community are still being met.

While there was both positive and negative feedback, McCann responded to many patrons that the point of the town hall meeting is to get feedback from the community to hear if these proposals are in their best interest too. He said that all of their feedback and concerns are going to be taken into consideration in moving forward with the planning.