Time running out on CNP west elementary

Choctaw-Nicoma Park expects mid-July decision about school site

 

The future of a new elementary school planned for the west side of the Choctaw-Nicoma Park School District remains in limbo.

The district plans to build a new school on 10 acres along SE 29th Street, east of Westminster Road, however officials say they may need to adjust their plans if an agreement can’t be reached this month.

“We’ll know by mid-July what we have to do. You have to get moving at some point,” said CNP Superintendent David Reid.

The proposed new school, currently referred to as CNP west elementary, was designed for about 650 students in grades pre-K through fifth.

Officials hoped to break ground on the project this year, but the district has not been able to obtain sewer service to the site.

“We have not been able to obtain sewage rights to it at this point. We can’t get started until we get sewage rights,” said Reid.

“SE 29th is our desired location, and that is where we hope to build. However, if we can’t obtain sewage rights by the time our bids have to be canceled, which is rapidly approaching, we will have to look at other options. That decision is left up to our current construction management firm, but we’re looking at somewhere in the first of July time-frame.”

The new school would need to construct a sewer lagoon or connect to the existing Midwest City sewer system, and both options have proven to be an insurmountable challenge thus far.

CNP Schools has 10 acres to build the new elementary, but DEQ says they would need an additional 10 acres to build a sewer lagoon.

“The land that was donated is actually in Oklahoma City limits. We have had Midwest City agree to give us water, but they put a moratorium on sewage, so we can’t get sewage. So, we were going to do a lagoon, but that requires an additional 10 acres of land. So, we asked to purchase that land, but someone else, that doesn’t want a lagoon beside them, is trying to buy that land. The developer, who made the initial land donation, has proposed putting the lagoon on some land he has to the northwest, which is in Midwest City, and we’re looking into that possibility.”

Midwest City presented the school district with two options to possibly gain sewer access.

Option one included connecting to Midwest City’s sewer system outside of the moratorium area. That would require the school district to extend a private sewer line west along SE 29th Street to the nearest connection located west of Snapper Lane. No other connections to that line would be allowed, and the district would be required to handle all costs and maintenance.

“We had the ability to go up past five landowners on SE 29th with easements. We would have to go past two neighborhoods to tie into the sewer system where it’s outside the moratorium area. But in order to do that, we need to get private land easements, and we have one land owner who has not been willing to work with us,” said Reid. “Midwest City won’t allow our sewage line to go in their easement. So, it has to be farther back outside of Midwest City’s easement. I think their easement is back 33 feet, and ours would have to be 50. We had four of the five landowners pretty well willing to work with us, but the fifth was asking far more than we could pay to put a pipe in the ground.”.

The second option offered by Midwest City leadership would allow the school to run a service line to Midwest City’s existing sewer system directly if the city council votes to lift the moratorium sometime before June 1, 2026.

Reid says this option isn’t viable as the school was slated to open in August 2026, and there’s no guarantee the city plans on lifting their moratorium.

“I just can’t ask my board to approve a $22 million school, we build it, and then at the end of the day there’s no sewage. We’d be stuck with a building we can’t use,” explained Reid.

“Midwest City is not going to do anything outside the moratorium. We’ve asked them to allow a school which would serve the community with probably 75 to 80 percent of the students attending that school would be Midwest City residents. They said with the moratorium they can’t do it. We worked with all the homebuilders in that area to get them to agree they would not sue the city, but the best we could get was an MOU saying that once the moratorium was lifted, they would allow us access to the sewage and not before. They have not given us a time frame, and say they don’t have one. So, we’re not going to be able to just sit and wait on Midwest City. If we’re not able to obtain easements equitably for all involved, which we’re still working on, then we’d have to make a recommendation to the board one way or another.”

Reid says the best option would be the current site, but a decision will likely be made this month if the district needs to plan to use land they own on the east side of the district or purchase land within a municipality that is more willing to work with the school district.

“When kids are in school most people are not in their house. They’re not going to be utilizing water and sewer at the same time as homes. So, it’s not like the addition of a school that is serving Midwest City neighborhoods is going to overwhelm their system,” said Reid.

If Midwest City fails to accommodate the west-side elementary, Reid says the district will likely work to acquire new land within the City of Choctaw.

“Eventually, if we have to cancel our bids we’ve made for this one, then we’d have to make the determination if we want to wait on this site or if we want to look elsewhere. We’ve had some people reach out offering land, and we have some options which would be in Choctaw,” said Reid.

The district planned to build two new elementary schools, one on the west and later one on the east side of the district, as part of the recent bond issue. The initial plan was to construct the west school first, and then build a CNP east elementary on land already owned by the district, near Triple X and Reno, with future bond funding.

The school district will have to undergo an attendance boundary change regardless of where the new school is built, but with a rapidly increasing population on the west side of the district, officials believe a west elementary would better serve the community.

“We’re doing one new elementary now, and the other won’t be built until 2040. So, in order to help every school, we’re going to have to redistrict everybody. If we have to build to the east, we may end up pulling students from Midwest City, Nicoma Park, and Westfall out farther east. There’s a lot of thought and work with surveyors that goes into redistricting. You have to look at housing and ages to see where kids are coming from to figure out how to equitably split the district. When we do that it’ll obviously be a big process, and we’ll be meeting with bigger school districts that do this process all the time. You’re going to try to make everyone as happy as possible, but anytime you’re redistricting there’s going to be some hurt feelings, and someone is not going to be happy. We just have to do the best we can,” said Reid.

Officials say delays likely have the project a year and a half behind on a build that should take a year and a half to two years to complete.

“The problem is you have to start engineering all over, clear the land, do all the testing, renew designs and get those plans approved. Even if you keep the building the same, the lay of the land would cause them to have to make structural engineering changes,” explained Reid.

“The clearing and testing of the land is about $400,000. The biggest cost is we’d have is to purchase land in Choctaw, which isn’t cheap, while we had land at this other site already donated to us.”

 

 

 

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