Schools

School Board Postpones New Middle School Design, Architect Decision

Plymouth-Canton School Board members unanimously voted to postpone making a decision for the new middle school.

After more than an hour of discussion, Plymouth-Canton School Board members decided to wait on appointing an architect for 2013 bond projects, including the design of the new middle school on Tuesday night. 

Superintendent Jeremy Hughes presented three options for the new middle school site located on a 24-acre property at Canton Center and Cherry Hill roads in Canton.

The first option was to use the Discovery Middle school design as a prototype in order to avoid costs of designing from scratch. The school was built in 1998.

Other options included a two-story building based on designs of Walled Lake Middle School and a three-story building based on designs of a building in Saginaw Public School District. TMP Architecture, out of West Bloomfield, was the architect for both the two and three-story schools. Fanning Howey Associates designed Discovery Middle School.

According to Hughes, the three story building held the most appeal for district middle school administrators primarily due to the amount of space saved for recreation and physical activities. However, the staff recommendation to Board members was to design the new school modeled after the Walled Lake prototype and designate TMP as the architect for the new school and other 2013 bond projects.

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Board Secretary Adrienne Davis was unhappy with Hughes' presentation, saying she wasn't hearing enough about the 21st Century classrooms and programming.

"I'm hearing nuts and bolts now, I'm not hearing vision of a 21st Century classroom," she said. "My personal concern is that we're in nuts and bolts looking at square footage per dollars. We're not talking about what kind of programming and curriculum and green and lighting and classrooms that will attract parents to our school district - it's like we've missed a significant important step."

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Davis said her concern was that the district was limiting itself by modeling the new middle school after old designs. Walled Lake Middle School was built in 1993. She suggested looking at schools built in the last few years that have won design awards and are the most energy efficient.

TMP representatives said that there have been no design discussions as of yet, and they are simply trying to establish a guide.

Vice President Judy Madigan said that she didn't see that much of a difference between the two-story building and Discovery Middle School. 

"You can still get the track and the baseball field in," she said. "So I'm finding that less of a compelling argument. And I'm saying which way I want to go. I want more information on what that school would look like and what it would cost. We're buying something tonight, and I don't think we know what we're buying."

President John Barrett said a site visit was a crucial factor the district middle school administrators because they would be the people managing the building.

Board members said they would look into holding a special meeting in July to further discuss the middle school design and architect. A date was not named at the meeting. 

*Editor's note: This article has been corrected from its original post to report that Fanning Howey Associates was the architect to design Discovery Middle School.


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