Schools want input on crowding

by Daily Inter Lake
| February 25, 2012 9:45 PM

Kalispell Public Schools will host a community forum on overcrowding in schools at 7 p.m. Monday at Hedges Elementary School, 827 Fourth Ave. E.

A second forum will be held at 5 p.m. March 5 at Edgerton Elementary School, 1400 Whitefish Stage Road.

Kalispell Public Schools assistant superintendent Dan Zorn will moderate the forums.

“The bottom line is we’re really struggling with overcrowding in our elementary schools,” Zorn said. “Over the past ten years of data we looked at, we have a 30 percent increase in our enrollment.”

Every possible space in the elementary schools has been utilized, Zorn said, including converting stages into music classrooms in Peterson and Russell schools.

With the district violating state accreditation standards for classroom size, the long-range facility planning committee is considering considered short-term and long-term solutions such as early kindergarten release, four-day school weeks, adding instructional aides, building additions and a new elementary school.

School officials are seeking community input on these options or new suggestions.

For more information, call 751-3434.