OK Elementary grew from 1877 one-room schoolhouse. Why Wichita district plans to close it
Editor's note: Before voters decide on a $450 million school bond issue on Feb. 25, The Eagle is profiling many of the schools affected. Read more profiles and find continuing coverage of the bond issue election here.
OK Elementary School is so old that the Wichita school district's historians can't say for sure how it got its name.
It was established in 1877 as a one-room school house in what is now known as the Delano Township, west of Wichita's original city limits.
In the early years of Sedgwick County, the small school house was a major landmark in what is now northwest Wichita.
As the city of Wichita expanded west in the 1950s and annexed the land around OK, many of the houses in the area were sold with advertisements in local newspapers, including The Eagle, that listed the school as a selling point.
Records show 'OK School' also served as a regular meeting space for prohibitionists, Republican Party events and other civic meetings throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The original building was torn down in 1924. The existing building was originally constructed in 1952, and OK was absorbed into the Wichita school district in 1957.
The school has gone through several additions, tear-downs and rebuilds in the past 100 years, according to the school district's 'A History of Wichita Public Schools Buildings' compiled by Nina Davis in 1978 and updated by Sara Lomax in 1996.
It was fully renovated and expanded in 1976. It was again expanded with funding from bond issues in 2000 and 2008.
Address: 1607 N. West St.
Size: 50,121 square feet of building space on 6.179 acres.
Built: 1952 with additions in 1976, 2002 and 2014.
Enrollment (2023-2024): 276, with 73.9% economically disadvantaged, 13.1% English Language Learners (students who are not fluent in English language) and 21.7% students with disabilities.
Racial demographics: 44.2% white, 38.8% Hispanic, 12% multiracial, 5.1% African American or American Indian/Alaska Native.
Consultants targeted OK — along with three other elementary schools — for closure based on enrollment trends and its proximity to schools that are to be rebuilt if the bond issue passes.
Wichita Public Schools wants to move to a 'newer and fewer' buildings approach to education, putting smaller neighborhood schools with small enrollment numbers, such as OK, on the chopping block.
A 2024 feasibility study found OK had an FCI of 0.75 — meaning the cost to maintain the building over the next five years was estimated at 75% of the cost to rebuild it with a new building of the same size — and an enrollment of 276 students, which was under the 350-student threshold the consultants chose as a standard. The building had a utilization rate of 67%.
OK was expanded through a 2000 bond issue that upgraded and replaced infrastructure, added 11 classrooms, built new FEMA shelter multipurpose room and kitchen.
An expansion after the 2008 bond issue included a new library, three more classrooms, a controlled access entry, remodeled art classroom, renovated student support spaces, upgraded restrooms, remodeled for special education restrooms and fire, bus and student pick-up lanes. The district was unable to provide a detailed cost breakdown for how much money went to OK in the past two bond issues.
Students from OK would be reassigned to Black, 1045 N. High, and McLean, 2277 N. Marigold Lane, according to the facilities master plan approved by the Wichita school board in 2024.
The school district plans to rebuild Black and McLean if the 2025 bond issue passes. McLean would also take in some students from Woodland and Pleasant Valley elementary schools.
The master plan shows students from OK could face transportation challenges if they currently walk to school. The school is currently an average distance of 1.79 miles from students' homes. The average distance from students to their reassigned schools would be 2.17 miles, the plan says.
OK could be closed by the end of the decade, according to a timeline in the district's master plan that's guiding the bond issue. It is expected to coincide with the completion of a tear-down and rebuild of McLean, which is scheduled to be completed in 2028, and Black, which is expected to be completed in 2029.
Luke Newman, facilities director of Wichita Public Schools, indicated that the district plans to close OK — and three other elementary schools — whether the bond passes or not.
'The master plan is the master plan, and we have to move forward with it, with or without a bond,' Newman said. 'And so what will happen is we'll still need to move forward with the building retirements, but we would just have to do it without the rebuilds on the other side of it.'
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