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Decreasing enrollment may force district to close middle school
By Codi Hamblin
Staff Reporter
A drop in student enrollment may force Concrete School District officials to close its middle school beginning next school year.
District officials held a community meeting earlier this month to discuss the potential closure. School board members will hold a workshop April 28 and will vote on the decision during the April 30 school board meeting.
Concrete School District Superintendent Barbara Hawkings said if the school board votes to close the middle school, it wouldn’t be a permanent closure. However, she said it would probably remain closed at least five years.
“We can open the building as soon as we have the enrollment,” Hawkings said.
The elementary school is currently kindergarten through sixth grades, middle school is seventh and eighth and the high school is ninth through 12th grades. If the middle school is closed, the elementary school will become kindergarten through eighth and the high school would remain the same.
The school district has so far lost about 40 students during the 2007/2008 school year and lost 40 during the previous school year, said Kathy Hurn, business manager for Concrete School District. The school district had 923 students during the 1999/2000 school year and school district officials are budgeting for about 640 students for the 2008/2009 school year.
“In eight years we’ve lost 283 students since the 1999/2000 school year,” Hurn said. “That’s significant for a small district our size.”
The middle school currently has about 100 students and school district officials said they anticipate the same for next year.
Class sizes at the elementary school would remain fairly small with the change, Hawkings said. The building was designed to hold 500 students and only 420 would
occupy the classrooms.
For the 2007/2008 school year, each student registered with the Concrete School District brings $5,359 to the school district, Hurn said.
When a family with four or five children leave the area, that’s a lot of money leaving the school district, said Don Beazizo, principal for both the high school and middle school. He said decreasing enrollment seems to be a pattern for smaller school districts in and near Skagit County.
Consequently, low student enrollment will mean cutting jobs for the school district as district officials are looking at eliminating about 3.2 teaching positions for next school year. Decisions will be based off a seniority list, district officials said.
By cutting jobs, Hurn said, the school district will save about $179,000. None of the middle school teachers’ jobs would be cut due to their rank on the seniority list, Hawkings said.
Despite the lack of middle school students, all electives except yearbook would be available for the students. There would still be a yearbook, Hawkings said, but it would not be offered as an elective.
Middle school sports would also be available to seventh and eighth graders, and Hawkings said district officials are considering allowing sixth graders to participate as well.
It would be sad to see the middle school closed, said Erin Grogh, whose seventh-grade daughter attends the middle school. They have such terrific teachers, she said, and her daughter has grown and become responsible since attending the middle school.
“She’s getting so much nurturing from the middle school,” Grogh said.
The students enrolled in seventh grade this year are the ones who would be most affected since they will be returning to the elementary school building, she said. Grogh said she is also disappointed to see teachers be let go as the school has so many talented instructors.
Hawkings said she would like to see closing the middle school as something positive. Both Hawkings and Beazizo said one benefit is that middle school students would have an administrator in the building at all times — unlike the current situation where Beazizo is located in the high school and cannot be in two places at once.
“It’s nice to have an administrator in the building,” Beazizo said. “I know that’s a positive for teachers.”
Other benefits would include better utilization of the teachers’ skills and knowledge, Hawkings said. If a teacher is endorsed in two different subjects, perhaps it would allow them to teach two subjects instead of one, she said.
The school district needs to think outside the box to address the problem of enrollment, Hawkings said. It could result in a better use of the school district’s resources, she said.
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Posted by LivinUpriver on 
April 25, 2008 - 04:32 PM
I dont blame people for not wanting their children in that school district. I would NEVER place my child(ren) that district. That is one of the worst run school districts in Washington state.