Bemidji Proud 22 hrs · Why doesnt the District re-open Deer Lake Elementary? Deer Lake Elementary was designed and built to serve 150-170 students. Since 2007, Bemidji Area Schools has grown by 358 students in grades K-5 and is projected to add another 326 K-5 students over the next five years. That is a total growth of 684 K-5 students! Deer Lake Elementary’s capacity would leave us without the needed room for the other 500 K-5 students! We would need ANOTHER elementary building the same size as Lincoln Elementary to accommodate the remaining 500 K-5 students. There are also other cost and efficiency concerns to re-opening Deer Lake Elementary. • Attendance boundaries would need to be adjusted and would significantly disrupt families who have been attending another neighborhood school. • The cost of re-fitting the building to bring all operating systems up to current code was projected to cost over $500,000.00 several years ago when the Board considered other options – the current cost would be significantly higher. Since Deer Lake Elementary closed, the District has maintained the building for storage of equipment and supplies, and have salvaged all equipment that could be used to meet operating needs in other schools. • Single section schools (one classroom for each grade level) like Deer Lake Elementary create significant class size variations that cannot be efficiently addressed. One grade level cohort can be 30+ students and the next grade level cohort can be 15 students. This leaves one classroom overcrowded and one classroom underutilized. Dividing the overcrowded classroom may not be possible if a classroom is unavailable and you increase your operating cost per student by 1/3 with the additional staff in an underutilized classroom. • The cost of student transportation would increase significantly due to the geographic distance from our transportation hubs and the need to add high school and middle school shuttles. • The cost of providing Art, Music, Technology and Library/Media Center services would increase significantly and instructional time would be lost as these teachers travel from one school to another. It is more efficient and a better use of resources to have teachers working with kids than to have them driving from one school to another. Deer Lake Elementary does not provide the space necessary to meet the K-5 student growth and the operating costs are not a responsible, effective or efficient use of District resources.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 01:16:02 +0000
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