The Board of Education wanted to put all the options on the table when it came to the discussion of closing an elementary school. Now one has been nixed.
Vice Chairman Chris Murray proposed investigating the capacity at the district’s two middle school buildings and seeing if they could fit the district’s entire fifth grade population.
Superintendent Deborah Low did some number-crunching and figured that the capacity — classrooms, gymnasiums, and cafeterias — wasn’t there at East Ridge Middle School and Scotts Ridge Middle School to fit such a move.
“We ran two separate versions — one where the fifth grade resembles a team model like the one that is currently in place at the middle schools and another where the fifth graders were in individual classrooms like they have now at their respective schools,” Ms. Low said.
“It was clear in both models that we weren’t going to fit,” she said.
“We’d need to lose a whole team at Scotts Ridge, which has two right now, to even consider it, and that doesn’t look like it would happen within the next 10 years based on enrollment.”
Breaking it down a little in her report to the board, Ms. Low noted that at Scotts Ridge there would be only one room available for fifth graders — not nearly enough space.
Similarly, there wouldn’t be any room in the gym to fit fifth grade classes that would have to meet at least twice a week.
Additionally, lunch would be a problem in terms of space and time.
“The four 23-minute lunch periods would start at 10:42 a.m. and end at 12:26 p.m.,” she wrote.
And that’s not even touching on the spatial problems.
She noted those also exist in classrooms for art and music, as well as at recess.
“This is complicated, and clearly there aren’t enough classrooms to begin with,” said Mr. Murray after a brief presentation. “It’s not even close … I wonder who came up with this idea.”
