In January 2013, the Virginia-Highland Civic Association met with APS Superintendent Erroll Davis to discuss a proposed addition to Inman Middle School. The VHCA presented a traffic study to Davis and asked him to consider that data when deciding whether to build an annex, renovate an old school or build an addition onto Inman. Davis chose the last option, despite the VHCA’s worries.
“There are parking and traffic concerns,” said Jenifer Keenan, a VHCA board member. “The buses and drop-off lead to a big backup on Virginia [Avenue], and the surrounding smaller neighborhood streets during drop-off and pickup. And in particular, the neighbors who live immediately around Inman have said that they have trouble in their morning commute to work because of the traffic that surrounds the school.”
The short-term solution for Inman’s overcrowding problem was to install eight trailers (two classrooms each) onto the soccer field. Presently, only connections classes are in the trailers, specifically health, Spanish, French, a social studies connections class and a creative-writing class. This only accounts for nine of the 16 classrooms. The rest are used as a computer lab and offices.
Although Davis chose to build an addition, the VHCA has remained optimistic.
“The Civic Association is hopeful that we will be able to provide input on coming up with a better plan to deal with the buses and traffic and help develop a plan for facilitating better drop-off and pickup,” Keenan said.
The size of the addition has yet to be finalized, but there have been preliminary meetings between the Inman principal, Paula Herrema, and BRPH, an architecture and engineering firm.
“We believe they need approximately eight classrooms,” said Jere Smith, APS director of capital improvements.
There are four proposed designs, some with the eight classrooms jutting out from the front of the building. The other designs show the classrooms flush with the front wall of the building.
Smith is also a member of the project committee for the addition.In addition to Smith, the project committee consists of Herrema as the chairman, a local school council representative, a PTA representative, a faculty representative, a school board representative, a community representative and David White, who is the executive director for the region.
While the project committee has not had its first meeting yet, it is planned to happen by Dec. 20.
“I think once that project committee starts meeting, we’ll have a lot more information,” said Mary Jo Bryan, a member of the Inman PTA and the Local School Council.
Another meeting that was postponed is the meeting where the Centennial Place Elementary School charter would be voted on. If Centennial, an Inman feeder school, hadn’t transitioned to K-8, the Inman addition could have been different.
“It would likely have to be bigger,” Smith said. “We’d have to relook at what we’re doing.”
Currently there are 977 students enrolled at Inman. Since Centennial voted to become K-8, the projected amount will remain the same, but if they had do not, the projected population would have been 1,037. Once the size of the addition is finalized, it will still take many months before construction is finished.
“We anticipate [the renovation will] start somewhere late next year, 2014,” Smith said. “It will likely take about 12 months to complete.”
Although Keenan and the Civic Association are trying to stay optimistic about the project, she believes that this addition is not an adequate long-term solution for the overcrowding at Inman. Eventually, APS will have to do something more.
“As the student population continues to grow at Inman,” she said, “it continues to have more and more impact on the neighborhood.”
A longer term solution will be hard to find, given the lack of nearby land for building and the community’s desire to not send their students farther away to attend school.
