Student surge puts W. Valley in a bind

Four students left West Valley School over Christmas vacation — but 12 new students were there to take their place.

It’s a pattern the school is used to.

West Valley’s steady enrollment growth has benefits, including increased state funding. But it also has drawbacks, as the school’s available space is not unlimited.

As classrooms become more crowded, school officials and trustees are searching for a solution that will give them more legroom without breaking the backs of taxpayers already feeling the economic pinch.

The school board held a work session Monday to discuss the district’s expansion options.

They discussed two expansion phases, Superintendent Todd Fiske said. The second phase involves building a new school on land donated to the district by the Aspen Group, which owns the Starling development planned west of Glacier High School.

That school likely would be for lower elementary students, Fiske said, possibly for kindergarten, first and second grades, with room to add grades as necessary. That would allow the current school building to move toward becoming a middle school.

A district with two separate campuses is probably far in the future, Fiske said. For now, officials and trustees are considering a different option: expanding the existing building.

The building was added on to 10 years ago, when it got a new gymnasium and additional classrooms. The school board at that time planned for one more expansion off the south end of the building, Fiske said.

Since then, West Valley’s enrollment has grown by 33 percent — more than any other district in Flathead County. With 440 students this year, the school is four students away from its estimated “practical capacity.”

That number came from a pair of Idaho-based consultants who have been helping the district explore its expansion options.

At a work session in December, John Evans of Coeur d’Alene-based Architects West and Dave Teater of Teater Consulting in Hayden told the school board that the existing building could not accommodate more than 477 students.

That scenario, Evans said, would be “tight-packed sardines.”

If West Valley grows next year as it did this year, students and staff could be packed like sardines this fall. Officials expect enrollment to reach 600 in the next five years.

There is no telling in what grades new students might be, making it difficult to predict which grades might feel the squeeze the most.

“Of course if I could hand-pick the next 50 kids, we could get them in relatively easily. But that won’t happen,” Fiske said. “We will feel the pinch of a few larger class sizes.”

Trustees and school officials know they need more room, but they haven’t yet determined what the expansion should look like. Extra classrooms are a must, but trustees also need to consider possibly adding a kitchen, Fiske said.

Right now the school’s meals come from the Evergreen School District. Evergreen has about 750 students in its district already; if its enrollment grows and West Valley’s continues to swell, Evergreen may decide it can no longer cook for everyone, Fiske said.

Perhaps even more challenging than determining what the expansion should include is figuring out how to pay for it. Trustees know many taxpayers are struggling already and might not be willing to shoulder an additional burden, Fiske said.

The district is doing what it can to ease the existing bond burden, he said. West Valley is halfway through paying back the $1.9 million it owes for the last expansion, and the district is looking to refinance. The district may be able to shave a few years off the debt, Fiske said, or at least get a lower interest rate.

West Valley wasn’t able to take advantage of federal stimulus grants that other local districts secured, he said.

Cayuse Prairie and Fair-Mont-Egan each received grants that will allow the districts to repay bonds with extremely low or no interest.

The grant helped persuade Cayuse Prairie voters to approve a $1.95 million bond request in November. Fair-Mont-Egan is hoping voters will approve a $1.9 million bond request in April.

Before the West Valley board will consider asking voters to approve a bond issue, the district will hold community meetings to get public input and gauge support for a bond issue, he said.

“We want the community to know that we’re not shooting from the hip,” he said. “We’ve waited. We’ve been calculated in our approach.”

Still, the timing could be tricky, Fiske said.

“We know that if we do nothing and we wait another couple years and we continue to grow the way we are, we will be way behind the curve,” he said. “That’s really the hardest puzzle, if you will, in terms of when should we run [a bond], if we decide to, and how much.”

The board hasn’t yet decided to move forward, so community meetings haven’t yet been set. Trustees have tentatively set another work session for 7 a.m. Feb. 22; community members are always welcome at board meetings.

Call the school at 755-7239 for further information.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.