MARSHALL — In the coming years, the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative will need to look at new locations for both one of its educational centers and its main offices. It could provide a chance for the Marshall Public School District to collaborate and address some of its own facilities needs, Superintendent Jeremy Williams said.

Representatives from SWWC Service Cooperative, including SWWC Executive Director Cliff Carmody, presented ideas for facilities partnerships at Monday’s Marshall School Board meeting.

“Cliff and I probably started talking last summer … about different projects and different facilities needs,” Williams said. “One of the things we’ve been talking about is long-term facilities goals for both of us.”

MPS and SWWC could potentially team up on space that would include the school district’s Alternative Learning Center or district offices, Williams said.

“When Jeremy reached out and said, ‘Should we talk, should we think about what we can do together?’ (The answer) was absolutely yes we should,” Carmody said.

Both the school district and SWWC have facilities or building space needs, and Williams said working together could end up being more efficient. On MPS’s side, the school district’s Alternative Learning Center, where MATEC is located, has some drawbacks in its current location.

“Currently we are in a location that was built as a retail space,” Williams said. “It wasn’t built to be a school.” The current ALC doesn’t have space for PE or a science lab, and has a building layout that’s not ideal for security and visibility.

Beyond the ALC, the school district also has limited space at the Marshall Middle School campus. Williams said there’s need for more room for both special education and counseling spaces and district office space. Moving the district office could free up more room for education at MMS, he said.

On SWWC’s side, the cooperative is looking at the future of their Educational Learning Center in Belview and the SWWC corporate office, which is located at the Market Street Mall.

“We have seen population growth every year” for students in high-needs special education, who attend Educational Learning Centers, Carmody said. Finding appropriate educational space for these students is a high priority for SWWC. “It was just so clear to us we need to do a better job of providing that space,” he said.

Carmody said SWWC wants to bring its ELC program in Belview to Marshall “as soon as we can.” The Belview school building is facing problems including an aging boiler, he said. The cooperative also has questions about the future of the Market Street Mall, and is looking at other possibilities for re-locating their offices after their current lease is up in 2023. SWWC representatives said there could be potential for the cooperative to partner with MPS on educational and office space.

“We know with your needs for an ALC, and our needs for an ELC, we can collaborate to provide recreational space that we can share,” Carmody said. Carmody said partnerships with area communities have made a big difference for ELCs in Cosmos and Montevideo, while saving on cost.

SWWC has targeted the 2023-24 academic year as a goal for moving the ELC into a new facility. Gary Hay of architecture firm Hay Dobbs said he also took a look at the MATEC facility to get a feel for what kind of shared program space might be needed.

“We’re not asking for any kind of commitment here tonight,” Carmody said. “We’re going to have to do something on the co-op side, no matter what,” but they didn’t need an immediate response from MPS.