Board To Consider Bond, Year-Round School Middle, Elementary Schools Struggle With Overcrowding

The big question before the Coeur d’Alene School Board tonight is whether to hold a $14.9 million bond election this fall to build a third middle school.

The idea of year-round schools is also on the agenda as a proposed solution to crowding at elementary schools.

The school district’s long-range planning committee recommended last month that the district try again to pass a bond levy for construction of a third middle school, remodeling of Coeur d’Alene High School and additions to Dalton Gardens Elementary.

A $13.4 million bond issue for the same array of projects failed in May.

Inflation in construction costs accounts for the increase in the proposed bond amount, according to the long-range planning committee.

School officials plan to use portable classrooms temporarily for overflowing enrollment at the middle schools.

Enrollment is growing at a rate between 3.5 percent and 4 percent a year. District projections predict about 4,000 elementary school students by the fall of 1995, 350 more than were in school last winter.

Year-round schools will be introduced tonight as a possible solution for crowded elementary schools.

The Coeur d’Alene Area Chamber of Commerce subcommittee on education has researched year-round schools for the past year, said Hazel Bauman, the district’s elementary education coordinator.

The committee found that a year-round schedule would help relieve the district’s “facility crunch” and could have academic benefits, too, said Bauman, who sat on the chamber’s committee.

“It could definitely save some space. It could be a short-term bridge until we can build enough schools,” she said.

“It’s a response to overcrowding and also the taxpayers’ needs,” she continued. “One of the criticisms we’ve heard is that we haven’t looked at alternatives to overcrowding solutions, except to build new schools.”

A citizens group studied year-round schools in the mid-‘80s as a means to avoid double-shifting at the high school. The idea fizzled under former Superintendent Keith Tolzin. Bauman said the timing was wrong then. Crowding was too severe to be solved with year-round schools alone, she said.

If the school board gives the concept its blessing, the district would form a committee with the aim of starting a year-round schedule by the fall of 1995 at one school - or two, if there’s enough interest, Bauman said.

The school would be either Fernan or Hayden Meadows elementary, because they are air-conditioned.

A year-round schedule does not mean students attend all year. Instead, four-fifths of the students attend school at a time, with one-fifth on vacation. Instead of one long vacation, students take shorter vacations more often.

Research shows that teachers spend less time reviewing lessons, because students retain more with the shorter vacations.