County Rejects School Expansion Neighbors Fight Elk Mountain Academy Request

Residents of Cascade Creek north of Clark Fork spent Thursday morning putting out a fire that some kids started next to a neighbor’s barn.

That afternoon, they assembled in the Bonner County Courthouse to fight a request by Elk Mountain Academy to increase the size of its student body and staff.

“This morning’s event illustrates dramatically our concerns about fire,” Brian D’Aoust told Bonner County commissioners at Thursday’s hearing.

Their fretting convinced commissioners, who voted unanimously to deny the school’s request to increase the number of students from 25 to 36.

Elk Mountain Academy is a boarding school for students with emotional and substance abuse problems. It’s located on 90 acres in the Cabinet Mountains.

While neighbors don’t believe that students of Elk Mountain Academy started the fire, they did say they believe the school and its students pose an increased fire hazard to their rural neighborhood.

Furthermore, they argued that the road leading to Elk Mountain is not well-maintained enough for fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.

“I’m not willing to go along with any increase in students,” said Dale Van Stone, commission chairman, adding that he’d heard some concerns about the school from a sheriff’s deputy.

Kim Pearson, who spoke on behalf of the school, said the neighbors had taken to calling the Sheriff’s Department for every little incident to try to create a record of problems. They’d even called the state Department of Health and Welfare with allegations of abuse, he said.

“They’re calling at the drop of a hat,” he said. “They are not going to be happy until one of them is sitting behind the wheel of a bulldozer, bulldozing the school down.”

Neighbors said they started reporting everything because they were frustrated with Elk Mountain Academy’s portrayal of the school as being trouble-free.

“They made such a big deal out of not having any problems with the police,” said Janie Miller, a neighbor. “That’s because we tried to settle everything ourselves.”

Elk Mountain Academy received permission from the county last spring to house 25 students. But the county placed conditions on the permit, including a probationary period for two years, during which the school has to abide by terms of the permit in order to receive an extension.

Neighbors urged the commissioners to hold the school to the two-year probationary period before allowing it to increase its numbers.

Elk Mountain Academy argued that it needed the increased capacity to accommodate students in its intake program, which is a six- to nine-week period when incoming students are observed 24 hours a day. Students who fit in are allowed to enroll in the regular program.

Students in the intake program, called Base Camp, are not regulated by the state, so Elk Mountain Academy’s administrators did not include them in their initial request for a conditional use permit from the county until it was too late.

Because of the timing, they were forced to return and request a modification to the conditional use permit.

Elk Mountain Academy owner and founder Carl Olding said the decision would not affect the school immediately because it currently has fewer than 25 students on campus.