Crowded school concerns district

SANDPOINT — Once a day, Sagle Elementary School’s upper quartile math and science students share portable classroom space with an extended day kindergarten class.

Sectioned off by portable room dividers, the structure also stores cardboard cases containing everything from fluorescent light bulbs to fluoride dental treatments.

Upper quartile students’ work space is surrounded by unused desks stacked two high.

In the main school building, the hallways also function as storage space for everything from large rolls of construction paper mounted on stands, to televisions and students’ music instruments scattered about the floor.

Janitorial supplies are kept in a portable storage building located between the school and two portable classrooms.

The main building lacks not only storage space for supplies, but it also is short on room for its students, said Supt. Dick Cvitanich, indicating storage cabinets lining one hallway. The cabinets are used by teachers for paperwork.

“Ideally you’d have room for this,” he said.

It is a situation that concerns the Sagle Fire Department, said principal Don Moore.

As Lake Pend Oreille School District’s board of trustees and administration prepare for a $14.1 million plant facilities levy on May 20, Cvitanich has conducted tours of the district’s schools to explain building needs, including that of Sagle Elementary.

If the levy passes, the district would spend $1.2 million at Sagle to add four classrooms, bathrooms and storage space for janitorial supplies onto the main building. It would keep the portables because the area’s growth is projected to continue.

The levy also include $6.8 million to complete Kootenai school and another $5 million on health and safety improvements, plus another $1 million in contingency funds to address rising construction costs. Trustees do not want another Kootenai school situation in which a project was not completed because costs increased and the money was not available, Cvitanich said.

He is frequently asked why the district needs to add classrooms at Kootenai and Sagle schools when its enrollment has declined and it will reduce staff by 33 positions beginning July 1, Cvitanich said. Some patrons also have asked why trustees have not closed a school to save money.

Although enrollment has decreased by a combined 298 students this and the previous school year and is projected to drop by another 100 students in the coming year, Sagle and Kootenai schools are full, as are Farmin and Washington, he said.

Sandpoint High School enrollment also has decreased, but the school was built for 900 students and its enrollment rests at 1,100.

Sagle has two sixth grade classrooms with 33 students each — students who at this age take up more real estate than first or second graders.

Moore said he literally has to walk sideways, arms flat against his body, to walk through one of those classrooms. That classroom not only includes a teacher, but several special needs children, including one student who has an adult helper with him all day.

“At Sagle, we have faced bubble classes for years,” he said.

The district defines bubble classes as those in which the student population is much larger than anticipated based upon the previous year’s enrollment.

When Kootenai and Sagle schools were built originally, they were short on space, Cvitanich said.

Sagle Elementary was remodeled in 1988 with funds from the last plant facilities levy approved by voters.

The school quickly filled with students and within a couple of years, two portable classrooms were added behind the school, said Moore.

The resource and Title 1 room in the main building became a first/second grade classroom and the resource room was moved into a portable classroom.

Moore and other district educators are quick, however, to defend the quality of education students are receiving in spite of the setting. Sagle’s upper quartile students have adapted to the cramped classroom, Moore added.

“We don’t have great facilities, but we certainly have great staff in our schools,” Cvitanich said.

However, Hope Elementary principal Sherri Hatley said she also can imagine how much more could be done for students without the distractions caused by facilities that are in poor shape.

Cvitanich said closing a school would be easy if there were 300 fewer students in one community, but said that isn’t the case. The enrollment decrease works out to be about 1.7 students per class in each school, he said.

The district’s rural nature is not conducive to closing a school because of what it would mean in terms of transporting students to another school, not to mention the lack of space available space at another school for those same students, he said.

Imagine the consequences of closing Sagle Elementary school. Where would those students attend school — would they be transported to Southside or Washington or even Farmin? Those schools do not have room for additional students, he said.

Farmin already has 137 more students than it should, he said. By adding classrooms at Kootenai, students from that area who currently attend Farmin would attend school in the zone they live in and overcrowding would be eased at Farmin.

Last year, one boy who attended Farmin but lived in the Kootenai school zone spent 45 minutes on the bus, not to mention 20 minutes in the car, just to get to school, said Farmin principal Anne Bagby.

A school tour is an eye opener, Cvitanich said. “You don’t see it when you drive by the buildings.”

He also believes that patrons and parents who do come inside schools like Washington, Farmin, Sagle and Kootenai have become so used to seeing the problems that they simply don’t notice them anymore.

The levy needs 55 percent plus one vote to pass.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories about issues related to the upcoming levy.