CdA charter school bulging at the seams

The Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy will have more students and staff when school resumes this fall, but it won’t have the four additional classrooms that officials had planned to build this summer.

Rising construction costs pushed estimates into the $1.2 million range, far higher than the approximately $800,000 the school had planned to spend. The school’s board of directors has rejected the bids, and school officials will spend the summer figuring out where to put the additional people.

“We obviously don’t like the situation, but we’ll do the best we can to make it work,” said Glenn Mabile, business manager for the school. “It will make for a crowded building, yes.”

The school increased its sixth- and seventh-grade enrollment this fall from 75 students in each grade to 100 in anticipation of the four-classroom expansion, and it plans to hire three new teachers by the time the school year begins Aug. 28.

There already aren’t enough classrooms for every teacher, and the new teachers likely will be added into the classroom rotation, Mabile said.

“The space that we need for the additional students exists here in the building, but it will require a bit of creative scheduling,” Mabile said. “We’ve got a couple of different plans that we’re working on.”

Sixth- and seventh-grade class sizes will increase slightly, Mabile said, from about 18 to around 21.

Board member Jeff Child said at last week’s meeting that construction costs have increased by about 50 percent in the last year, pushing the cost of the additional classrooms beyond what the school is prepared to pay.

“I don’t think it’s any secret that building costs have just skyrocketed,” Child said.

School officials say they’re dealing with a problem similar to the one facing the Coeur d’Alene School District after voters rejected a proposed bond levy in March: the need for more space but the lack of a way to pay for it.

Though the academy is a free public school that is state-funded, the school cannot levy taxes, so extra money can come only through donations and loans.

“We have a very good financial position now, and if we build something too grandiose, we might overextend ourselves financially,” Mabile said.

The school raised about $130,000 for the additional classrooms through an auction in February and an ongoing capital construction campaign; the rest would come from reserves and loans, Mabile said.

Despite increasing construction costs, board members assure staff and parents that the classrooms will be built.

“There’s money in the budget set aside for it, and we will do it,” Mabile said.

But construction isn’t expected to happen this year, and parent volunteers are organizing another benefit auction in February for the building efforts.

Organizer Suzan Ward said they also may seek grants.

“We’re a little behind schedule, but … I know we’ll get there,” she said.

The additional classrooms will be the second major expansion since the school opened in 1999. The first project three years ago added four classrooms and a multipurpose room.