PORT TOWNSEND ¬– Mountain View Elementary won’t be seeing another first day of school.
The campus at Walker and Blaine streets will close for good at the end of this school year.
A special meeting held by the School Board in the Lincoln Building on Fir Street on Monday night was standing room only for the announcement.
A brief presentation of the plan to close the school was followed by a community discussion — one of several to come, according to Port Townsend School District Superintendent Tom Opstad.
“We will have a few more meetings in January to receive feedback and make minor changes,” Opstad said, “but this is the plan.”
The district will restructure grades between the remaining elementary school, Grant Street, and Blue Heron Middle School.
Grant Street Elementary will house approximately 440 students in grades kindergarten through fourth, and Blue Heron will accommodate about 420 students in grades fifth through eighth.
The district will need to install new portable buildings at Grant Street to make room for classrooms and a cafeteria.
The total cost of the structures is estimated to be around $450,000.
To pay for that, the school district is looking at selling land it owns between Grant and Sheridan streets and either leasing or selling the Mountain View property.
Opstad said there was no firm plan on how to pay for the costs.
“We are very limited in our budget,” Opstad said. “We can’t afford to do any kind of construction.”
The budget for the coming year has about $17,000 free without considering improvements to the Grant Street facility, Opstad said.
Opstad said the district must reduce operating costs by more than $500,000 a year to balance the budget.
A consultant informed the School Board that one way to achieve that is to close a school.
Twice this year, the district missed a super-majority in elections that would have financed bonds to pay for constructing a new school on the Grant Street campus to accommodate all the district’s elementary students after Mountain View is closed.
But with those elections failing, the district was faced with having to make the changes without the new school buildings.
Opstad said the decision to go with Grant Street over Mountain View came down to capacity.
Grant Street can currently house 320 students, while Mountain View can hold 288.
Also, the Grant Street campus already has utilities laid out for portable structures to be installed.
“This is the best option I have seen,” said School Board member John Eissinger.
“Whatever we recommend to do, someone isn’t going to be happy.”
And at Monday’s meeting, several people did voice concerns.
The most common question was about the community swimming pool on the Mountain View campus — would it remain open despite the closing of the school?
2009 funding
The city and the school district have an agreement that keeps the pool open through 2009 with city funding.
After that, it will be based on a year-to-year agreement between the two agencies.
When pushed about the School Board’s commitment to the pool, board member Rita Beebe illuminated the district’s position.
“The pool is important, but it isn’t in the top two,” Beebe said. “The safety of our students and the quality of the classrooms they learn in are in the top two.
“The education of our students is the most important issue to me, and if you don’t like it, I’m up for re-election and you can go ahead and run against me.”
The district is looking at a dire financial situation in the coming years because of enrollment decreases.
Each student the district loses will cost it a little more than $5,000 in state funding, the superintendent said.
“If we lose 100 students district-wide, that is half a million dollars we don’t have anymore,” Opstad said.
The district now has 1,394 students enrolled full time. By 2010, that number is expected to drop to 1,270.
In 2013, the expected enrollment is 1,124.
The dwindling enrollment — and the loss of money that comes with it — are the prime reasons for closing the school, Opstad said.
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Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com.
