Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the area next to Westside Community Church where Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation will build a 12th elementary in Columbus, Ind., pictured on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023.
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. is seeking community input to help decide what the name will be for the district’s new westside elementary school.
A survey went live on Tuesday afternoon for input about what the name will be, according to Brett Boezeman, assistant superintendent for finance and operations.
To access the survey, visit bcscenvision2030.org and clicking on the survey banner. The website has updates and information about the the district’s $306 million facilities plan.
The survey will be open until the end of BCSC’s spring break on March 24 and the final name will come before BCSC board trustees for approval in the late-spring to early summer, Boezeman said.
The school corporation’s 12th elementary school, the first since Clifty Creek in 1982, will cost an estimated $60 million and is to accommodate the city’s continued expansion to the west and south. BCSC officials previously said approximately 650 students will attend the new school.
The process for deciding upon a name got started last fall, when it was suggested at a BCSC districting and facilities committee meeting that students should be involved in naming the new elementary school.
“Our CSA schools are all project-based learning, and we thought it’d be a really good opportunity for them to implement some of their processes and protocols to help us get to this point,” said Boezeman.
All four of BCSC’s Columbus Signature Academy (CSA) schools— New Tech, Central, Lincoln and Fodrea— had a hand in the naming journey up to this point. New Tech students took on a leadership role and guided students at the other three schools through project benchmarks.
New Tech students began by planning what the process would look like and asked their elementary counterparts to do a deep-dive into how BCSC schools were named in the past. Most of the schools’ names were inspired by their general geographic location — North, East, Southside etc. — but others included celebrated past educators and historical figures.
“We told them the new school doesn’t have to fall into those parameters, necessarily,” Boezeman said. “But those are the three categories that we have here thus far.”
Students then produced a list of potential names beginning with 85 options. Through feedback and the development of a decision-making matrix, that number was paired down to 20 possible names. In turn, administrators and the districting and facilities committee whittled that down to the following 10:
- Horizon Elementary
- Maple Grove Elementary
- Mt. Pleasant Elementary
- Red Bridge Elementary
- Sycamore Hills Elementary
- Tulip Ridge Elementary
- Twelve Points Elementary
- Westside Elementary
- Westside Hills
- Valley View Elementary
The survey is not going to decide the name by popular vote and the aforementioned list is not comprised of the only options. The survey tasks participants with listing their top three from the list, but also asks for alternative ideas as well.
Boston-based Howeler+Yoon was selected to design the new westside elementary school and is working alongside architecture firm of record CSO Architects. Taylor Bros and Pepper Construction are working as construction manager/constructor on the project.
BCSC is spending $306 million as part of the Envision 2030 facilities plan on various renovations to schools across the district. The westside elementary is included in phase 1, alongside work to Northside Middle School, Columbus North High School, Columbus East High School, Smith Elementary, Mt. Health Elementary, the R.L Johnson building, and McDowell Education Center.
During a school board meeting in November, BCSC officials discussed the “petal design” chosen for the westside school after Howeler+Yoon presented eight different options. The architectural design was funded by The Cummins Architecture Program.
Construction on the new elementary will begin in April, according to a BCSC timeline, with construction wrapping up in July 2027 for school the following month.
