Rightsizing to Overcrowd Schools

There's something ironic about a school district miscalculating a simple math equation when it comes to how our students will supposedly fit into their new schools. Bottom line: this math doesn't add up. If Tudor Elementary is closed, ASD proposes sending its 179 neighborhood students to Lake Otis Elementary. A simple analysis of current enrollment shows this will put Lake Otis Elementary over building capacity by about 56 students. District reps confirmed at the first ASD Community Conversation meeting that the solution to this problem will likely be to bring in temporary buildings - also called relocatables - to house extra classrooms, until such a time that enrollment decreases and they are no longer necessary. This is exactly what we're seeing in local middle schools now where buildings have been filled beyond capacity with the the addition of 6th graders in middle school.

While relocatables are not ideal classroom environments for many reasons, that plan sort of makes sense, in a purely logical way. Now here's where things get really messy... the district failed to take into account that nearly 50% of Tudor's 124 Montessori students are actually neighborhood students. Meaning these students live in the Tudor Elementary school zone, and will also be zoned for Lake Otis elementary should they be unable to drive their child to and from Denali Montessori every day.

Take a look at what happens to building capacity now.

At even a 5% decrease in enrollment in ASD, it would take up to 4 years before the use of temporary buildings would no longer be required. By which time, most of our students will have moved on to middle school.

And that's before we consider the costs of moving and using relocatable buildings, or the impact they might have on student academic outcomes. Portable classrooms are notoriously difficult to temperature control, which makes for a less comfortable learning environment, and create serious safety and security concerns since they are disconnected from the secure entrances of our school buildings. While maybe not as major a concern for middle school class periods, students at our schools leave their classroom at minimum 3 times a day for WIN, optionals, and lunch. That's 3 more times in Alaskan winter you're asking students and teachers to dress for going in and out of the cold and moving between buildings. In fact, in 2007, Tudor Elementary had relocatable buildings because we were overcrowded. District school zones were redrawn to reduce the physical footprint of our school boundary to eliminate their need. See photo below.