Local News - March 2003

Schools balance high enrollment, overcrowding issues

By JEREMY ASHTON, LTN Staff Writer

March 28, 2003 - REEPSVILLE — Kim Beam and a group of students were hard at work Monday afternoon in the auditorium at Union Elementary School, but they weren’t on stage to rehearse a play.

They were there for an art class — just like every other Monday.

The other two days Beam teaches at Union, the stage is used by music classes. On those days, she has to travel from classroom to classroom, wheeling her materials around on a cart.

When Union was renovated in 1995, one room was set aside specifically for art.

“It was never used as an art room,” Principal Wanda Lutz said. “It was a classroom the first year.”

The opening of St. James Elementary and North Lincoln High schools in August will bring relief to severely overcrowded schools in the eastern end of the county. The problems in the west, however, are just as pronounced.

“People are now building homes out here,” said North Brook Elementary Assistant Principal Denise Patterson. “The development of homes has really impacted us.”

Just five years ago, North Brook had an enrollment of 368 students. The school, which has the capacity to support 410 students, now has close to 450. Four mobile classrooms have been brought in to support the overflow.

West Lincoln Middle added 12 new classrooms two years ago but still needs four mobile units to support a student population about 90 over capacity. Principal Phyllis Tallent has already requested three new mobile units for next year.

When North Lincoln and St. James begin classes, Union will easily be the most overcrowded school in the county. The school has capacity for 510 students, but its enrollment is hovering around 650.

Like North Brook and West Lincoln Middle, Union has tried to alleviate the problem with mobile units, setting up its fifth outside the main building this year. But if the school’s population swells any more, that will no longer be a viable option.

“We really were surprised there was enough space out there to put it,” Lutz said. “We’re landlocked. We have no land here.”

Mobile units, which cost approximately $5,000 each to set up, provide more classroom space, but they have drawbacks.

Students are exposed to the weather walking between the mobiles and the main part of the school, and Lutz said they are “undesirable for safety.”

In addition, the mobiles create a sense of isolation.

“They’re really nice, but you’re not in the house,” Tallent said. “It’s like you’re in an outbuilding.”

Mobile units also don’t address core facilities that can’t handle extra students.

The kitchen space at North Brook isn’t big enough to prepare food for the school’s students and teachers, Patterson said.

Meanwhile, lunch in Union’s cafeteria lasts from 10:35 a.m. to 1:35 p.m.

“We kid that our first-graders go to brunch,” Lutz said.

At West Lincoln Middle, two classes have to be in the gymnasium at the same time to make sure everyone gets physical education. The media center and kitchen area can’t handle the number of students, either.

“You can keep adding on to schools with new wings and classrooms, but if you don’t increase the size of those core areas, it’s hard to accommodate everybody,” Tallent said.

Earlier this month, the Board of Education and administrative staff presented the county’s Board of Commissioners with a five-year facility plan. The list of needs includes an elementary school in the west and a middle school in central Lincoln to replace Lincolnton Middle and handle overflow from West.

The estimated cost of all the projects on that list exceeds $60 million.

The responsibility of putting together a bond referendum to pay for any new schools falls to the commissioners. If they started working on a bond now, Lyle Back, the school system’s coordinator of community schools, said it would take at least three years for a new school to be constructed — assuming voters passed the bond issue.

“Just because the economy is having problems right now, it doesn’t change the needs for facilities for our students,” Back said.

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Staff Writer Jeremy Ashton can be reached at 704-735-3031 or jashton@ltnews.com.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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