Fifth graders won’t move next year

On a 3 to 2 vote, the Sisters School Board Monday night decided to remodel its middle school so that fifth grade students can be moved there, if necessary, in the fall of 2006.

There was no debate over the basic question of moving the fifth graders. But it took nearly an hour’s friendly debate to reach a conclusion on timing. Waiting until the 2006-07 school year, as recommended by Superintendent Ted Thonstad, ultimately prevailed with the support of Board Chairman Glen Lasken and members Eric Dolson and Tom Coffield.

Dissenters Bill Reed and Jeff Smith favored making the move this fall, at the start of the 2005-06 school year.

All agreed that, as Lasken said, “There are risks either way.”

Monday’s vote concluded, for now, a discussion the board opened in early December over what to do about overcrowding at Sisters Elementary School. The discussion ranged over half a dozen options and included two public hearings.

The risk of waiting until 2006 to make the move is that elementary school enrollment in the fall of 2005 could burgeon enough to require more immediate relief. But if that happens, Thonstad said the district should be able to use two classrooms in the remodeled administration building for temporary overflow.

The district is planning to convert its “old” middle school on the east side of town into a central administration building that will also contain a couple of classrooms.

The structure is just across Locust Street from the elementary school. The remodeled building should be ready for occupancy this fall, or at the latest by the winter break of 2005-06.

It will cost an estimated $110,500 to do the middle school remodeling.

The main risks of moving faster and making the change this fall are that it would not leave enough time for planning and preparation and would put too much stress on a budget fraught with uncertainty because this is a legislative year.

No one knows how much money the Legislature will provide for schools for the 2005-07 biennium, and that decision probably won’t be made until May or June.

On the possibility of moving this fall, Middle School Principal Lora Nordquist told the board, “We could be ready. It’s tight, but we could do it.”

When the discussion veered toward waiting until next month to decide, however, she said, “If we’re going to move next (school) year, we need to know tonight.”

She stressed the need for planning and consultation by the staffs of both school and the need to work with parents, some of whom oppose the move.

Nordquist said that making the change will require the addition of a two-thirds-time teacher for program coordination.

That would add pressure on the budget and on already high student-teacher classroom ratios.

This prompted Dolson to warn his colleagues, “You don’t have any salary slack…If you add the two-thirds of a person you will have to cut somewhere.”