Budget Shortfall, Need For Upgrades Makes West Elementary Expendable

Superintendent Troy Unzicker had little room to maneuver as he stood in front of a crowd of concerned citizens the night of January 30, at McNees Auditorium to discuss the fate of West Elementary.

"We're all reluctant to close the building," Unzicker said. "But we don't see a lot of options."

Unzicker started the forum by explaining the school's financial situation, and what would be needed to keep the public school system afloat.

"Right now, I still look at being approximately $200,000 short in paying our bills. What that means is our district for maybe the first time will have to borrow from another fund to pay our general fund bills," Unzicker said.

Unzicker cited that with salaries being fixed at about $5.5 million and only having $6.1 million overall to work with to cover the rest of the district's expenditures, something needs to be cut in order to keep our public schools within budget.

The reason for considering closing West Elementary instead of another school stems from a feasibility study conducted this past year that outlined the damages to the school and what it would take to bring the school up to code.

"$200,000 to update the boiler, $75,000 to update the piping, and if you wanted to bring some kind of air unit onto this, another $250,000," Unzicker said.

Pros and cons of the potential closing and absorbing students and staff into Mary Lynch Elementary were presented to the crowd on a powerpoint slideshow. Some of the pros being a better collaboration for both students and staff, repair costs would be cut in at least half, and there would be a better use for paraprofessionals. Some of the cons being no extra rooms, SPED numbers and moving them all into one room, possible reduction of classified staff, and losing the luxury of separate buildings for the little kids.

After running through the pros and cons, the forum was opened to public comments. The primary concern voiced was how the younger students and older students would be separated to keep the younger kids from potentially being bullied.

"What is the separation going to look like in the bathroom and hallways?" asked one concerned parent.

"There 's the bathrooms at the east end of Mary Lynch. If you put the 5th and 6th grade down at that corner, those would be their bathrooms, 3rd and 4th would have the bathrooms in the middle of the hallway, and that would mean kindergarten and 1st grade would be out at the modular and they would have their own bathrooms out there. Even as far as hall, outside of maybe sending somebody to an office, they shouldn't be roaming up and down the halls too much," Unzicker said.

Concerning the separation of the different grades during the lunch hour, West Elementary and Mary Lynch Elementary Principal Mike Mitchell offered up a possible way to schedule the lunch times of the different grades so that there is minimal contact between the younger and older kids.

"What I have penciled in is kindergarten and 1st grade would be done eating before the 4th grade came in and be done on the playground before the 4th grade goes out. The 4th, 5th and 6th would be out there together at the end of lunch hour. I've looked at all that stuff, and I feel very confident in the plan that I've put together," Mitchell said.

Another concern of merging the two schools together was the potential increase in class sizes with one resident citing that they chose Kimball schools because of the small class sizes as they have proven to carry a greater educational value. They asked of Unzicker what would keep them in Kimball should those class sizes do go up to approximately 25 students.

"I'm not saying the district wants to do that. We're being forced into doing that. This is a statewide issue and a lot of it falls into that expenditure lid. If we were still able to pull the $500,000 from tax sources, at least we would have that money, and we wouldn't have to be doing these cuts or let our class sizes raise," Unzicker said.

Cathy Flores, West Elementary first grade teacher, passionately stood up for the building, saying that it is needed in order to keep the educational value and support for the children the best that it can be.

"If you haven't been at West and haven't been there all day and see how we utilize that building, that's sad. You need to see the comfort those kids feel in that building. You need to see how we spread out and use the classrooms that may be empty. There's not going to be a place at Mary Lynch to bring our kids in in the cold and not have recess. I would think the extra space is fabulous for our education. I don't think this is what's best for 4,5 and 6 year olds. There are a lot of things that go on at West that are important to us that may seem minute to an adult but are very important to our 4,5 and 6 year olds. I think as a community we need to finally take a look at the elementary and finally stand behind our little people for a change," Flores said.

Before the closing of the forum, Principal Mitchell asked to say a few words to try to allay fears of what could go wrong should West Elementary be closed.

"The byline of the whole thing is we have an excellent teaching staff. We have some super excellent paraprofessionals, and they're going to do everything they can to educate the kids. Whether it's done in one or two buildings, the education of the kids is not going to suffer. It's dollars and cents right now, but the kids are still going to get a great education, bottom line," Mitchell said.

Though there were a lot of questions and at times passions ran high as the topic was discussed, Unzicker feels that the forum went well.

"We've talked about this for several years. Closing a building is always a very emotional issue. Overall, I was very impressed. It was very quality questions and legitimate concerns," Unzicker said.

The issue of closing West Elementary will be brought before the school board at their February 11 meeting.