At its April 13 board meeting, the
Puyallup School Board took the next step in the process of deciding
whether to close Hilltop Elementary, the smallest of the district’s 22
elementary schools.
The board unanimously approved a resolution initiating a 90-day time frame to consider closing the North Hill school.
During
the next three months, the board of directors will accept public
testimony on the potential school closure and review a comprehensive
analysis on the subject. The board requested the study during its March
23 meeting.
The full report (pdf, 3.2Mb), which was shared at Monday’s board meeting, is available on this district Web site.
A
public hearing on the potential closure will be held on June 10, with a
final decision scheduled to be made at the July 13, 2009 school board
meeting.
Board President
Greg Heath encourages community members to study the analysis of the
potential school closure and share their comments. In addition to making
their voices heard at the public hearing, citizens may e-mail comments
on this district Web site.
Heath stressed that the board will review all comments and suggestions and that no decision will be made until July.
Superintendent recommendation
Superintendent
Tony Apostle recommends the board consider closing Hilltop Elementary,
citing both educational and financial reasons.
“I
believe the time has arrived and the data points strongly suggest” that
Hilltop Elementary be closed and consolidated with Northwood and Mt.
View elementary schools, the other two sites on North Hill serving
students in kindergarten through grade six, Apostle said.
“When
are small schools too small?” Apostle said. “I offer that when they
offer inequitable resources to students, they are too small. When they
become too expensive to operate and take away valuable resources from
all students, they are too small. When they offer fewer educational
opportunities and they offer limited diverse social development for
students, they are too small.”
Apostle’s
comments followed a comprehensive report by Rudy Fyles, executive
director of facilities, who outlined enrollment patterns, financial
considerations, facility planning, and projected growth over the next 12
years in the North Hill region.
Enrollment
Hilltop
Elementary has experienced a continuous decline of students for more
than a decade, Fyles said. In the past 13 years the school has dropped a
third of its enrollment, serving 102 fewer students between October
1995 and October 2008.
The
school, located adjacent to Edgemont Junior High, is the smallest
elementary school in the district with 211 students enrolled last
October.
If Hilltop
Elementary closes next year, enrollment at Northwood Elementary would
jump from 265 students this year to 381 in the fall. Mt. View Elementary
would increase from 294 this year to 369. Both Northwood and Mt. View
elementary schools have room to serve the additional students, Fyles
said.
Hilltop Elementary
staff members would be realigned throughout the school district, said
Lorraine Wilson, assistant superintendent of human resources.
While
it is difficult to project future growth in the region because of the
unstable economy, the Northwood Elementary master plan calls for adding
portable classrooms if necessary by 2014 and building a new 550-student
or 750-student elementary school to handle long-term enrollment growth.
Consolidating
three schools into two would save the district nearly $350,000 annually
and is included in $15.7 million worth of savings proposed in the
2009-10 draft budget.
The
school district, like others around the state, is undergoing
historically unprecedented budget cuts due to the severely reduced
funding from the state of Washington.
Closure idea spans several decades
The
idea of closing Hilltop Elementary is not new. Some of the earliest
discussions of eventual closure date to the mid-1980s. Fyles also
presented documentation of news articles that address a meeting in 1998
between the school board and the Edgewood City Council.
The
agenda included a presentation and discussion of the search for a site
for a new Edgemont Junior High. More than 300 people attended the
meeting, and discussion included building the new Edgemont Junior High
on the existing site with the possibility of consolidating Hilltop
Elementary with Northwood Elementary within six to 12 years.
A
year later, a committee of citizens commissioned to review district
facility needs recommended to the school board Hilltop Elementary be
consolidated with Northwood Elementary at the 20-acre Northwood site
within seven to 12 years.
“It
is historically clear that the consolidation of Hilltop has been
discussed and planned for in public venues for more than 10 years,”
Fyles said.
Benefits of consolidation
By
doing so, Edgemont Junior High could eventually expand its classroom
facilities and improve safety by relocating the track and field to the
Hilltop site, Fyles said. The only way to access the track and field now
is for students to cross 24th Street.
Hilltop
Elementary students and teachers would also benefit from being served
in an educational environment where they are surrounded by more of their
peers, Fyles said. In the analysis presented Monday night, orchestra is
mentioned as one program that would benefit from the consolidation.
This
year, for example, there are two sixth-grade students in the Hilltop
Elementary orchestra class. While this provides students with more
individual attention, the report states that the limited instrumentation
“deprives them of the opportunity to have a full orchestra experience
until they reach junior high, while students in other schools are able
to perform in larger groups.”
Additionally,
the resolution approved by the board states there would be more
opportunities for teachers to team with their colleagues and participate
in professional development opportunities.
Hilltop
Elementary School opened in 1957 as part of a separate Edgemont School
District and consolidated with the Puyallup School District in 1967.
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