The Butler Residents for Quality Schools group has a five-minute YouTube video that claims Butler School District elementary school usage rates are about 80 percent, not the 67 percent that Thomas and Williamson Project Management has cited.

The usage rate is important because the school board is considering closing several elementary schools to make the district run more efficiently.

The board is expected to take a preliminary vote Monday night on three school consolidation plans.

Elementary utilization percentages are calculated by the number of students in each school divided by each school’s capacity.

In each of the three proposed plans, several spaces such as teachers’ lounges and special education rooms, are being converted, often changed back, into classrooms, changing current student capacity numbers.

Nina Teff of the residents quality group said, “The reason why we’re saying now that we don’t want any of the options … is because we’re going under the premise that you’re repurposing more rooms than you can repurpose, and where are those services going to be held?”

“If you’re saying we’re not compromising the education of the kids, and we’re especially not compromising special education, then how do you justify repurposing all of those rooms?”

Her children attend Meridian Elementary School.

But Jon Thomas of Thomas and Williamson stands by the 67 percent elementary use rate, and said that claiming those statistics as arbitrary is a “dangerous statement.”

“If it’s a room that has been commandeered to be used as a learning support room as a full-sized classroom, that’s really a full-sized classroom,” Thomas said. “You shouldn’t be designing a full-size classroom to support learning support because you have a much lower number of students in those rooms.”

None of the consolidation plans bring elementary use to 100 percent, he said. Some of those classes can be used as spare rooms even if they’re not designated as such.

In his plans, he said ideal student usage percentages would be about 85 percent for smaller schools, and 90 percent for larger schools, allowing flexibility.

Thomas said, “To the extent that there will always be spare classrooms. Anything that Thomas and Williamson has recommended, yes, they’re free to use a learning support classroom, even if it isn’t specifically designated as that.”

He added, “I published all my numbers, and I published how I calculated all of them. If they want to find a mistake in my calculation, I would invite them to do so, but I haven’t seen them do that.”

Thomas was hired by the district in 2013 to do a districtwide consolidation study.

Three top consolidation plans that board members are expected to vote on Monday are:

n A kindergarten through 3rd grade reconfiguration for elementary schools and the closing of six elementary schools, Broad Street, Center Avenue, Clearfield, Emily Brittain, Meridian and Oakland, with a $4.3 million annual savings

n A kindergarten through 4th grade configuration, closing five elementary schools, Broad Street, Center Avenue, Clearfield, Meridian and Oakland, with a $3.5 million annual savings; and

n Maintain the current kindergarten through 6th grade configuration, closing three elementary schools, Broad Street, Center Avenue, and Clearfield, and closing the junior high, with a $2.4 million annual savings.

The kindergarten through 3rd and kindergarten through 4th grade plans would send intermediate elementary students, potentially grades 4, 5, and 6, to the current junior high school.

All three proposed plans reconfigure secondary schools the same way: 7th through 9th grades would attend the intermediate high school, and 10th through 12th grades would attend the senior high school, compared to the current 9 to 10 and 11 to 12 setup.

After the vote Monday, there will be a public hearing period in February followed by a 90-day waiting period. Then the board is expected to take a final vote in May with changes occurring in the fall.

The district has 11 elementary schools.

Mary Wolf, assistant superintendent for elementary education, said she has some concerns with the kindergarten through 3rd grade and kindergarten through 6th grade plans in regards to the amount of space for some of the special education programs.

“The space I really want to keep my eye on and make sure that we have adequate space for is our Title I and pull-out learning support programs,” Wolf said.

“It is definitely something we are paying attention to and are working to make sure we have adequate space for students of all needs.”

She said she was most comfortable with the kindergarten through 4th grade plan because it provided the most flexibility for special education class space. She also said that in many cases, spaces being considered as classrooms are former classrooms.

“Rooms that could be vacated were filled. I think it’s natural, if they see an empty room, they’re going fill it somehow,” she said.

“Whether it’s with supplies, if you’re currently sharing a space, now you have your own space. I think that’s what has happened, and I think that’s why it appears that every room is needed,” she said.

“There’s a difference between every room being utilized and every room being occupied.”

Members of the quality group also have a petition to stop the consolidation process. Quality Schools supports the current kindergarten through 6th grade elementary school configuration. The group has a website at http://www.butlerk6.com.

Teff said, “We’re telling them ‘slow down, you’re rushing.’

“What they tell us is ‘we’ve been working on this for three years.’ … You haven’t really been working on it for three years because the board keeps telling us they’re seeing the information the same time we’re seeing the information.

“There’s no way that they’ve dug into a lot of these details yet.”