Can the district close Chalk Hill and consolidate K-8...
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Can the district close Chalk Hill and consolidate K-8 in the four remaining elementary and middle schools?
As the district goes through the process of evaluating the closing of a school, it welcomes feedback from the community. At the last BOE meeting, a proposal was submitted by Mr. Donlon regarding an alternative proposal of collapsing K-8 in 4 schools and closing Chalk Hill. We have begun to review Mr. Donlon’s suggested proposal, which, if accomplished, provides a way to avoid adding extra students to the high school.
I have asked Peter Holst, Director of Facilities to analyze the feasibility of this plan. At first blush, it appears we would not have enough room to accommodate all K-8 in these schools, but we will continue to look at this in greater detail over the next few days. For this plan to work, our initial calculations indicate that classes would need to be 25-26 students in size, but we will give a second look to all uses of space in these schools. Another consideration in planning educational programs today versus ten years ago is that schools today have needs for technology space, small group work for special education, and required intervention programs. These other necessary uses of space take some regular classrooms offline for instruction of traditional grade level classrooms.
However, the district has invited Mr. Donlon to have a discussion so he can share his analysis of this situation. Even if this scenario does not work for next year, it might be a viable option for two or three years from now. All of these discussions and analyses broaden our thinking and challenge how we are looking at things. I thank the community for its creative ideas and support as we plan for next year.