News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters Elementary School has a full complement of students. photo by Jim Cornelius
A sparsely attended public hearing January 10 gave the Sisters School Board only a little guidance about how to relieve elementary school overcrowding.
A larger turnout is expected for a second hearing, to begin at 7 p.m. tonight (Wednesday, January 19) in the elementary school library.
The topic of overcrowding was introduced at a special board workshop last month, and the board would like to decide on some course of action at its February 14 meeting.
A background paper prepared by Superintendent Ted Thonstad, assisted by elementary school Principal Tim Comfort and middle school Principal Lora Nordquist, lays out five options. Cost estimates were added at last week's session:
The second and third choices would cost about $110,000 and $84,000 respectively, for middle school remodeling and the construction of playground equipment. A modular structure would cost about $80,000. No cost is available yet for the administration building remodeling.
Only four parents spoke directly to these choices at last week's session, which preceded a regular board meeting. Heather Wester, mother of two elementary children and a former school board member, said, "I don't want my fifth grader in that building" (the former middle school, soon to be remodeled).
She said she doesn't want any elementary students going back and forth between the elementary school and the administration building-to-be, primarily for safety reasons.
"I have no problem with them being in the middle school," she added.
Christine Jones asked several questions about the consequences of moving the kindergarten to the middle school. And Lisa Smith, mother of a third grader, spoke firmly against sending fifth graders to the middle school. She said she was concerned about "issues of socialization...early pressure to maturity, to date, to wear make-up," pressure to behave like a teenager rather than a 10-year-old.
She said she saw no similar problems arising from the placement of kindergarten students in the middle school.
"Little children often bring out the best in teenagers," she said.
Much of the hearing was taken up with the presentation of a study by Rob Corrigan, a management consultant who is a member of the Sisters Elementary School Site Council and the father of two elementary school children.
He examined a variety of factors related to the growth of the Sisters area and to short-term future enrollment projections at the elementary school.
His paper noted that the increasing availability of "lower entry-point housing is driving a shift toward younger families with elementary school-aged children. Anecdotal evidence suggests (a) recent trend toward Sisters as (a) 'bedroom community,' (with) parents choosing Sisters for schools for their kids, commuting to Bend or Redmond for work."
He said the largest single factor in enrollment growth is new families moving into the area with school-aged kids.
His study concluded with predictions that the elementary school, which had 449 students in December 2004, will grow to 486 by the fall of 2006 and 516 by the fall of 2007.
At the December workshop, Thonstad presented historical records indicating that over the past six years elementary school enrollment has fluctuated between a high of 437 in 1998 and a low of 382 in 2002.
The superintendent has asked Portland State University for some information on projected Sisters population growth, particularly as it might affect the elementary school. The agenda for tonight's workshop indicates that he may discuss some results of that inquiry there.
At the close of last week's hearing, Board Chairman Glen Lasken commented that the board is looking for a short-term means of relieving elementary school crowding. The long-term solution will be a second elementary school, he said, but that is "at least six or seven years out."
During the December 10 session, Thonstad noted that the district's current bond issue for the high school that opened in the fall of 2003 won't be paid off until 2010. He said the district "probably won't do anything until then" by way of asking voters for money to build a second elementary school.
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