KIRKWOOD, Mo. — Two years have passed since Kirkwood School District voters passed Prop R.
Superintendent David Ulrich said students and parents are seeing the culmination of that measure at all Kirkwood schools as another school year gets underway.
The first day of classes is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 22.
Ulrich said Prop R deals with overcrowding and moderate growth expected over the next three to five years. It also provides ADA accessibility to all of its buildings and addresses security needs across the district.
Asked how Prop R addresses overcrowding, Ulrich said they are adding classrooms across the district on specific campuses. At Kirkwood High School, they’re going to add 15 new classrooms for students to occupy. Ten of those new classrooms will be in the new wing of the school. Five others have been recaptured for student purposes.
Kirkwood has nine school buildings.
Ulrich said everybody is getting something, whether it’s new classrooms at places like Westchester, Tillman Elementary or North Kirkwood Middle School. Other schools are getting new vestibules, secure entrances and ADA entrances at places like North Glendale and Robinson Elementary.
A 5 On Your Side reporter asked Ulrich how Prop R addresses security.
“Well, you see the welcome center we’re standing in, right now,” he said. “The most important thing Prop R is doing is providing an area for our campus visitors to check in with the office without having to go to the middle of our campus, which is how it was arranged prior to this.”
Ulrich said Kirkwood had been educating students in places within buildings that originally weren’t meant to be education spaces. Prop R will remedy that. Kirkwood officials expect students to be able to occupy these new spaces for generations to come.
Ulrich said some schools did not have ADA-accessible ways for people to enter, especially in the front of the buildings. Prop R allows district officials to address those issues, district-wide.
