Some board members lost their posts in the battle over new vs. renovation, but the community benefitted By Laurie Freeman A tour of the new Crawfordsville, Ind., High School reveals many of the amenities students and staff have come to expect from modern educational facilities. This Indiana community debated, fought and argued for more than seven years over whether to renovate the existing high school or construct a new building on a new site. Members of the Crawfordsville School Corp. Board of Trustees were voted out of office based on their position. Today, three years after the new school opened, a handful of residents still believe it would have been better to remodel. Hearson then served for eight years as board president.
Some people have strong emotional ties to their school and had a hard time envisioning a new school.
One of the most striking aspects of the dispute is that there was no dissension over whether the high school needed to be updated. The downtown facility was built in 1910 on a site dedicated to education since 1852. It was one of the state s oldest school buildings still being used for its original purpose. By the 1980s, it was clear that the old building and the site no longer had the space to meet state requirements or provide a modern curriculum. There s not a lot of time for activity during a 50-minute period if you need 20 minutes to dress and be transported to another site.