Ramay Junior High is moving.
For almost 60 years, the school, named after its first principal, M.O. Ramay, has been located in west Fayetteville on the corner of West Stone Street and South Sang Avenue.
Fayetteville Public Schools deputy superintendent Julie Williams said that while the junior high had a good run at that spot, it’s time to change scenery. The district determined this need with the help of an organization called MGT.
“And they actually are a demographic and enrollment study company,” Williams said. “And last year, we did a very comprehensive survey and evaluation, city town meetings to determine what people wanted most from their school district, and what came to the head was that they wanted to have consistent feeder patterns for their children from our nine elementaries, those children going to the same middle school like you would if you were in a smaller suburb or town, and those same children going To the same junior high before they went into our larger high school. So that is where this all came from. And so through our studies, we found out how to make that happen.”
Through the new feeder pattern, students who attend the new Ramay Junior High will begin their educational journeys at Leverett, Washington, Root and Happy Hollow Elementaries, then move to a new middle school housed in the former Woodland Junior High campus, and finally graduate to the new Ramay Junior High.
“Not only would this help centrally locate and create a solid, real feeder pattern,” she said, “but it would also take care of some of the inequities that we found with demography in regard to socioeconomics and other state subgroups, such as race. This creates the most free-reduced and equitable groups of students from each of those areas going to the same feeder pattern. So that's really why we did it.”
Last year, the school district purchased approximately 17 acres of undeveloped, forested hillside behind College Avenue, near the Poplar Street intersection, to serve as the site of the new Ramay. Williams said it’s a great location because of its central position within district boundaries, which differ from Fayetteville city limits.
Now, although little has occurred on the land yet, architectural renderings have been created, and a timeline is in the works with a possible opening in 2027. FPS Superintendent John Mulford spoke about the new school at a joint meeting with the city council and the school board last month. He said that while the location is ideal, it is undeveloped land in the middle of town. An urban forest of that size is rare in modern-day Fayetteville. However, district officials aim to lessen the impact as much as possible.
“So when you're building a junior high, the state recommends a minimum of 30 acres, and then adding additional acreage for every 100 students,” Mulford said. “This is 16.7 acres. Why is that important? Because we know the city's goals around infill, small footprint, all those types of things. And so instead of saying, ‘Well, we're going to try to get 30 to 40 acres,’ we said, ‘What's the minimum we can do it with?’ And that minimum is 15. We feel good at 15.”
Mulford also mentioned that there will be challenges, with the first one being the forested nature of the site.
“This is pretty much 100% tree canopy cover,” he said. “And so that I know is not going to be real palatable to some people.”
Local business owner Andrea Fournet is one of those people.
A few weeks ago, Fournet hosted a short hike through the proposed site for the new Ramay. She invited city council members Teresa Turk and Sarah Moore, along with planning commission member Jimm Garlock, to join her as she traipsed through the all but undisturbed landscape.
“So we're going to do is walk quietly, sort of just observe,” Fournet said.
The group began at the west end of the property and meandered down a roughly tracked path, crossing over animal tracks and small streams of water bubbling from the earth. They took note of what they saw. Councilwoman Turk noticed the topography of the site:
“Well, the steepness of the terrain, the older trees,” Turk said. “I mean, these look– things look really old and significant. And then you've got all this wildlife up here, and you've got these seeps. Here's another seep right here that's coming right out of the– a little spring that's coming right out of the side of the mountain. And so I look at things like what's its conservation, worth and integrity, and what's appropriate for development?
“You know, I think there's a reason why this has not been developed, and it's because it's so steep and it has a fully mature forest in here. So this is providing all that carbon sequestration that's making our lives in Fayetteville a lot healthier than they normally would be if it was just all all clear cut and destroyed and and I'm pretty sure that whatever plan the school district comes up with, they're going to have to take out a whole lot of trees, not just for the building or the football field, but also for access, sidewalks, roadways, where all those busses going to go. So there's going to be a significant impact here.”
The site currently has an agricultural use/ vacant zoning. Councilwoman Moore said the school board will work with city staff to rezone the property, and that College Avenue below the hillside underwent a similar process.
“Based on, again, what they're trying to achieve with the property,” Moore said. “They will come forward, kind of together with a package for like the rezone we had just done much of this down 71 was the urban corridor. I don't know how far that came back, though, typically our school buildings, our school properties, are done in a P where it has, like certain allowabilities to it because of the uniqueness of those types of projects.”
Garlock said that he thinks there are better places for the new Ramay and laments the siloed nature of the school district’s development process.
“It's a little frustrating that the school board, school district hasn't worked better with the city,” Garlock said. “And vice versa, when they have needs, why not plan it together and go to the place that makes the most sense, rather than the one that developers buy and push it through because they have a vested interest in it, versus what's best for where the city needs it and that where the school system needs it.”
Regarding preservation, FPS Deputy Superintendent Williams said the school board is cognizant of the forest’s benefits and the damage that the new building could bring upon it. So they hired nationally renowned architectural firm Lake Flato out of San Antonio to design the building.
The firm is known for its environmentally friendly building designs. Managing partner Greg Papay said his team’s taking an inside-out approach to creating the new Ramay Junior High.
“Our goal is to create the best learning environments possible for the students of Fayetteville who will be attending that junior high school,” Papay said. “And so we're going to be creating learning environments, both inside the building and outside the building, that allow the district to do things that they've not been able to do, you know, certainly can't do in the current building. We also looked at design buildings, you know, from the outside, like how this building fits within the larger context of the city, or in this case, in the context of the site.”
He said the team at Lake Flato is aware of the property’s environmental sensitivity, and they’re dedicated to preventing as much harm as possible.
“So our building is trying, as I said before, trying to be very compact in its footprint and then have its architectural character really almost derive that flavor from the spirit of the wooded site,” he said. “So, for example, our facade, the exterior skin or envelope of the building, is meant to be evocative of the bark patterns and the trunk patterns of the trees that are all around it. So that when you were back away from the building and maybe looking through the trees, you almost would start to blur the distinction between what was building and what was tree. Now it's 145,000 square foot building, so we're not going to pretend that it's a 300 square foot cabin, but within the character of creating that, we're trying to create a building that does sort of recede and really acts like it's a guest in this kind of larger landscape of that hillside.”
Papay said they’ve conceived a novel way to blend in with the surrounding Ozark scenery.
“We've developed this concept of the building moving from Earth through the canopy to the sky,” Papay said. “And so the materials that you'll see on the outside of the building, and then even the interior column. Character of the spaces will change as you're moving up, you know, through the level of the building. So it will feel like the ground, that it is grounded and rooted. And then it'll feel through the body of the building like it's a tree extending up into the sky. And then there is a more playful and evocative roof shape that feels a little bit like the Ozark Mountains. And so it'll feel like it's then also sort of touching the sky, so between materials and colors and just overall character, we're trying to do that same piece, take the landscape qualities of the site and have them be reflected within the building.”
The school board also tapped the local Prism Design Studio to oversee the landscaping of the new school. Jenny Burbige, the owner and principal landscape architect of Prism, said she visited the property to get a feel for how her team will proceed.
“I think our first field trip to the site, we like to get, you know, in the dirt,” Burbige said. “What are the feelings and emotions you have when you're moving through the space? And as designers, it's our desire to recreate that and bring that to guests as they arrive. And so we're looking, and some easy, low-hanging fruit for us is to use the native and local plant palette. That's kind of the ABCs of appropriate design, just in our profession.”
Maintaining native foliage allows for improved stormwater management while providing food and habitat for wildlife.
“In the site design,” she said, “it's been very intentional that where we have broken up programs and buildings and spatial elements is we feel like we're trying to allow the site to go through the school so it doesn't feel like a block in space, but it feels like the building grew organically there. And that's the goal, is that it doesn't feel like we came in and disturbed.”
She said she’s aware that some disturbance is unavoidable, but Prism and Lake Flato's mission is to be responsible with the development and use the building’s natural surroundings as a learning opportunity.
“Every landscape installation is really a demonstration project that you're able to utilize in everyday educational experiences: outdoor classrooms, community gardens,” Burbige said. “It's really one big, glorious outdoor learning lab, and we want to bring that special experience to an everyday, you know, school life, so for staff and faculty as well, not just the students, it's a generational and well-being that we're hoping we can make an influence.”
Back out on the site, Andrea Fournet said she’s worried about the breakneck speed at which Fayetteville, the school board, or otherwise, seems to be developing its natural land.
“Well, the forest has been here a long time,” Fournet said. “It has been undisturbed. This blanket of leaf, you see, is decades old and has never been disturbed. These trees have survived and lived on this base, even in tough terrain. As you can see, the topsoil is very little. My big concern is that we're moving too quickly and getting rid of some of our last remaining continuous hardwood forests in the whole city, and this forest, to me, means more than okay, great. You've got to put a school. I don't want the students not to have a good place to go to education, but there's got to be some other alternatives.
“Fast pace of development in our city is going to bite us in the butt 30 years from now, for those next generations that are thinking and hoping that their parents and grandparents are going to be taken care of land for their future. I think it's we, in the sense of this one, they bought the land in August, and they've already got our architectural drawings, and they don't even have zoning. But they've spent our tax dollars to buy this and our tax dollars to have an architectural design, and this is one of the last stands in the heart of town on a hillside. I have nothing else to say.”
Construction on the new campus will begin within the next few years, with a potential opening date as early as 2028. As for the old Ramay campus, Deputy Superintendent Williams said it will become a new choice high school. The school board plans to gather input to decide the focus of the new high school.
