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School officials say they may need to keep old Lakeview school open
Enrollment projections indicate district will top 10,500 K-12 students by 2017-18
Kathy Brown, Senior Reporter
Posted 3/12/13
After unveiling the seventh straight enrollment projections for Campbell County schools, trustees suggested the district shouldn't be so quick to abandon the old Lakeview Elementary once it's replaced in the fall of 2014.
Those projections indicate that over the next five years, the school district will have 1,800 more students in classrooms.
Anywhere from 365 to 369 more students are expected to join the district each year through 2017-18, according to the report produced by Middle Cities Education Association in Lansing, Mich., and released Tuesday night.
The Campbell County Boys and Girls Club may be interested in moving into the old school (in a deal with the city), once the replacement building opens, administrators said. But trustees suggested the district may not be able to do so unless the state builds new schools in Gillette quickly.
"We may have to look very hard at keeping Lakeview open when we get a Lakeview II," trustee Joe Lawrence said after hearing the report. The old Lakeview was built in 1968 and construction should start sometime this spring on its replacement.
"It will be interesting to see how it plays out," added trustee Anne Ochs. "I'd rather keep an old building open and have decent class sizes than have to cram students in."
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I agree with trustee Anne Ochs regarding her comment on decent class size. I believe that the state department has mandated class size for grades K through 3 to be no more than 16 students per class. This is for the benefit of the children, the teacher, and the learning process. Unfortunately, the mandate is written for a "district average" of students per class. Therefore, If we average several primary classroom from within the city that are over the mandated number of 16 children, with a classroom from Little Powder that has 2 students, we meet the mandated state average... even though the children in the over crowded classrooms suffer. Something to think about. Wednesday, March 13|Report this