School district looks at future with abundance of proposals
By Barbara Hollingsworth-The Capital-Journal
September 10, 2007
Get ready to pack.
Seaman Unified School District 345 officials have big moves planned in coming years as the district does away with its smallest elementary schools.
PLANNED CHANGES
• All seventh- and eighth-graders will be moved to one school.
• Small elementary schools will be combined leaving the district with five rather than eight elementary schools.
• An alternative school will be started with funds currently paid to other entities providing alternative education services.
• Planning for another bond issue will kick off during the 2016-2017 school year to build a new middle school.
"It's moving faster than I had anticipated, but it seems to make sense financially to do this sooner rather than later," superintendent Mike Mathes said.
It all starts next August when freshmen will move out of Northern Hills and Logan junior high schools and into a new addition at Seaman High School. At the same time, seventh- and eighth-graders will be consolidated at Northern Hills.
With Logan emptied, the building will be remodeled so East Indianola and Lyman elementary students — joined by the district's pre-school and Parents as Teachers programs — can move there starting with the 2010-2011 school year. At the same time, Indian Creek students will move to North Fairview Elementary. Lyman will become an alternative school.
That's just the start. Proposed changes would shake up nearly every other school in future years.
"It's a bad idea — a really bad idea," said Dave Jackson, a former school board member and state senator. "The strength of the Seaman district has always been the community, the families and the neighborhood schools. That's what makes us special compared to the other neighboring districts."
But those small schools also are what make Seaman's schools so much more expensive to operate, Mathes said. Schools so small that they can only support one class at each grade level retain the same overhead costs as large schools, including the expense of a principal, secretary and other jobs.
Consolidating the junior highs will net a savings of $240,000 a year, according to district estimates. Combining East Indianola and Lyman and North Fairview and Indian Creek would save an expected $300,000 yearly. With more students living farther away from school, the district would receive an estimated additional $100,000 in state transportation aid — a gain since the district already transports all of its students.
Class sizes would actually decrease for some students moving from small schools where there is little flexibility now for creating additional classes, Mathes said.
"We're not taking away our small elementary schools," Mathes said. "We're changing the definition of small."
In the end, the district would have five elementary schools holding 300 to 400 students, rather than eight elementaries, several of which have fewer than 200 children.
The transformation would become complete with another bond election. The district's long-range facilities plan contemplates another bond issue in about 10 years that would include a new middle school and additions to North Fairview and West Indianola elementary schools. When the construction dust finally settles, plans call for the Northern Hills building to become an elementary school taking in Pleasant Hill Elementary students. Rochester Elementary students would be sent different directions — to West Indianola, North Fairview and Northern Hills elementaries.
Of course the changes come with a cost.
An eight-classroom addition to Northern Hills is expected to cost $1.9 million while remodeling Logan will cost $2.3 million. The district plans to pay for that work from its capital outlay budget with a lease-purchase agreement. The cost is estimated at $580,000 a year for 10 years. Mathes said district officials were warned that delaying the work by even a year could cost as much as $200,000 in escalating construction costs.
Board member Ann Minihan has voted against the changes, but the long-time board member said she will get behind the plan now that it is in motion even though she knows the changes will be upsetting for many.
"I think overall this is going to be a good move," said Minihan, who would have preferred taking the changes to voters through a bond issue rather than funding them as a capital outlay project, which needs no voter approval.
For Jackson, whose grandchildren attend Lyman, it will mean the end of neighborhood schools that generations of his family grew up attending. Mostly, he simply isn't convinced that bigger will be better.
"Nobody that I know is happy about it," he said.
Still, Mathes said the changes are right financially and educationally.
"It's kind of an exciting time for the school district," he said. "I think the end results will be a more effective, efficient school district."
Barbara Hollingsworth can be reached at (785) 295-1285 or barbara.hollingsworth@cjonline.com.
