Present: K. Powell, S. Heinrich, W. Morrison, C. Morrison, M. Morrison
Excused: T. Koenig

The meeting was called to order at 7:40 PM by W. Morrison. He announced that the committee would be on the School Board agenda as part of the "Middle School Space Options" item on the agenda on June 26th.

W. Morrison began the meeting by reviewing what things the middle school administration had done in response to the space crunch they are experiencing. He noted that three resource rooms were now cluster classrooms, two Health teachers were now on wheels, the nurse's office and the teacher's workroom have been reclaimed for use as classrooms. The rest of the building is at full capacity. However, he noted that in five cases, Language Arts, Math and Reading are being taught in rooms larger than the room that Social Studies is being taught in and Social Studies has a greater square foot per student requirement. He indicated that the middle school is currently 12% over the maximum capacity. He noted the current plan to reclaim the maintenance area for the PASS program. He recalled that the upper elementary reconfiguration called for this area to become a Science classroom. He suggested that it would be better to renovate this area now for the intended use when the school becomes an upper elementary school rather than renovate the area twice.

Space options raised and discussed included:

• There might be a defensible need for only one modular classroom.
• The 7th grade will average 27 students per class.
• Could the computer class needed for high school graduation, but taught at the middle school be taught at the high school? This might reduce the number of computer lab/classrooms needed to one.
• Possibly offering a "traveling" stipend or other help such as dedicated bulletin board space, and extra sets of texts stored in each room used would ease the hardship of being on wheels.
• Could teachers on wheels split the year so that they are only on wheels for half a year?
• All non-student educational areas have been eliminated suggesting a need to rent storage trailers for off-season, library, and bulk storage.
• Hiring additional teachers which would reduce class sizes but add to the operating budget.
• The comment was made that everything done must have a positive impact on the student.

1. Any space solution should address the problem which is the non-compliance issues of undersized classrooms, class sizes exceeding the state standards, inadequate storage, rest rooms, nurse's office and administrative space.
2. The committee is against modular units, as proposed, because they do not reduce class sizes and they don't address any of the non-compliance issues.
3. Having a teacher on wheels is not a non-compliance issue and, while being on wheels is not ideal, subject matter can still be adequately and appropriately delivered by a teacher on wheels.
4. If the district does lease modular units, there are serious security and safety issues that need to be considered which include fencing, student restroom access, fire drill procedures, weather and building accessibility.
5. No matter what is done, there will still be many areas which can only be addressed by the building of a new school. These areas include the administrative and nurse's offices; the lunch area; special educational areas; classrooms for technology education, art, music, science, family and consumer science classroom; and conference spaces. The committee notes that while many are administrative areas, many more are student areas. The district can make the situation better, but it cannot fix it.

On a motion from S. Heinrich, seconded by K. Powell, the committee voted to adjourn at 9:10 PM.

Last Updated: April 3, 2003 by Wayne Morrison