Noblesville Schools will have difficult decisions to make if the facilities referendum does not pass.

Elementary
A new elementary school will not be built if the facilities referendum does not pass.

Redistricting of all elementary attendance areas will take place in 2011 instead of 2012 in order to balance enrollment throughout the district. That will impact all elementary schools. Portable classrooms will be needed to accommodate the number of students now enrolled in K-4.

The number of portables needed at the elementary schools will increase if we proceed with plans to return the fifth-graders to the elementary schools. (See Middle level.)

Middle level
The enrollment at both Noblesville Intermediate School and Noblesville Middle School will hit 1,600 within three years. That projection is based only on the number of students now enrolled in the elementary schools and does not consider additional growth. The capacity at those schools is 1,400.

We either will have to use portable classrooms at both of those schools in order to continue to accommodate grades 5-6 at NIS and grades 7-8 at NMS, or we can proceed with plans to keep fifth graders in the elementary schools and create two middle schools for grades 6-8 with enrollment of 1,000 each.

The programs at the two middle schools will not be equitable. The current middle school will have science labs, physical education locker rooms, and interscholastic practice fields; the second school (the current intermediate school) will not.


High school
Enrollment in advanced sciences, including AP and ACP science courses, and advanced health, and advanced physical education courses would be capped because of limited facilities and locker room space.