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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Schools A Lesson In Overcrowding District Officials Hope Levy Will Ease Crowding At Cda Middle Schools

Good thing it’s cool to carry backpacks, because there aren’t enough lockers to go around.

But that extra baggage adds to the congestion when a youthful torrent pulses through the halls of Lakes or Canfield middle schools.

Big kids get jostled. Little kids get scrunched.

“You have to push your way through. You get pushed into a locker,” explained Jennifer McCalmant, a Canfield sixth-grader.

Too many tempers, too few toilets. Assemblies and lunch times held in shifts. All are part of daily life at Coeur d’Alene’s middle schools. Each has 200 to 300 more students than its halls, lavatories, libraries, cafeterias and gymnasiums were meant to handle.

So teachers, administrators and students are hoping Coeur d’Alene voters will approve a third middle school on May 21.

The district has grown by 1,800 students in the last six years and is expected to keep growing by 200 a year. The two-year facilities levy would build a $9.5 million school on the city’s north side.

District Superintendent Doug Creswell hopes the levy has more appeal to voters than the 20-year bond proposals that failed in 1994 and 1995.

“It’s pay as you go - you don’t pay interest,” Creswell said of the levy. “In two years, the school’s built and paid for.”

The levy will require a 55 percent majority to pass. The last two bond elections needed 66 percent, so they failed despite 56 percent and 54 percent “yes” votes.

“In this case, we don’t have that stupid supermajority,” said Donna Aylward.

Her son is a Canfield sixth-grader. He’ll be in high school by fall of 1998, when the new middle school would open. But Aylward’s fourth-grade daughter would benefit by attending a much less crowded Canfield, should the new school be built.

The 30-student classes could drop to as low as 25, Aylward believes.

“Five students makes a definite difference. Five students is a reading group, a group working on a project that you don’t have to supervise,” she said.

Creswell doesn’t see much change in class sizes. Students would just be distributed evenly among the three schools. Canfield and Lakes would get rid of the portable classrooms that are helping them handle more than 1,000 students each.

A few years back, a counselor at Canfield dreamed that the school was surrounded by portables. That’s nearly come true. A dozen of the modular buildings crouch around Canfield’s perimeter.

Over at Lakes, there are four portables.

Although the portables don’t fix all overcrowding problems, they make decent classrooms. They’re quiet and bright.

That’s especially appreciated by teachers at Canfield. The school was built without windows during the 1970s energy scare, and it has pieshaped rooms that are awkward for large classes.

Lakes, built in 1952 as a high school, has a mishmash of room sizes. In his small space, teacher Chris Hammons bunches the desks of his sixth-graders into groups. If they were in normal rows, there’d be no room to walk.

Hammons would rather not put students shoulder-to shoulder. “The kids like to have their space.”

Like many families whose children are filling his school, Canfield principal Jim Lien “escaped Los Angeles in 1978” to take a teaching job at Canfield.

“We have a great school. That’s why I’ve stayed,” said Lien.

Both he and Lakes principal Larry Hill praised their teachers for doing a good job under difficult conditions. But they agreed that crowding interferes with learning.

Because there aren’t enough toilets for Canfield kids to use during their breaks, teachers such as Barb Yaniga must excuse students from class.

“We can’t say no,” she said. “Kids lose bits and pieces of my lectures all the time.”

Canfield sixth-graders lose 10 minutes of class so they can get to the lunchroom before the crush of bigger kids. Canfield does lunch in two shifts.

“I don’t know how they do it,” said Hill. Even with three lunch shifts at Lakes, he said, “kids are standing in line for lunch way longer than they should.”

It’s hard to foster a sense of community when there’s no place to hold an all-school assembly, Hill said. Lakes squeezed all three classes into its gym last December, for the first time in three years.

“When you move 1,050 kids in and out of that gym, it’s pretty scary,” Hill said.

He frets that his teachers don’t have a decent place to unwind. One of two small break rooms is crowded with laminating and copy machines.

The few computers available to students at Lakes are crammed into the back of the library.

After previous elections failed, district officials concluded that most “no” votes came from people who felt unfairly burdened by property taxes. That’s the only source of money available in Idaho to build schools.

There’s apparently no organized opposition to the May 21 levy. Tax activist Ron Rankin said he’s turned down calls from several people wanting him to get involved.

He’s too busy fighting for the passage of the One Percent Initiative, he said. That would shift school construction costs to the state’s general fund.

Rankin noted that property tax activists are generally more willing to accept facilities levies than bonds, which involve a long-term debt.

Pro-levy yard signs are popping up around town. But before passing out campaign materials in the schools, the election steering committee will cover up the “yes” in the “Vote yes” badges.

District employees aren’t supposed to tell people how to vote. Elections, said Hill, are “the will of the people.”

Students don’t have the burden of official objectivity.

“It’s worth it,” said Trevor Trisler. “They should have adults come here.”

He got nods of agreement from his eighth-grade buddies - at least, those who could hear him over the thunder of the Canfield cafeteria.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo; Graphic: Coeur d’Alene’s middle schools