Havre district discussing reconfiguring schools

For the last year, leaders have been discussing options for reconfiguring the Havre Public School district, as years of declining student population has not ended costly infrastructure needs.

"Reality says enrollment is dropping. And right now it does not make a lot of sense to invest that kind of money in one of our buildings," Superintendent Andy Carlson said Thursday.

The last time the district started out with more students than in the year before was six years ago, records show. Havre schools had 1,868 students in 2010-2011. That number shot up to 1,929 the next school year. The student count is taken in February.

It's been downhill since that last bump. The 2016-2017 year had 1,768 students. The 2017-2018 year's K-12 enrollment numbers are expected to be even lower, Carlson said.

Although there is no concrete action on the horizon, the reconfiguration conversation is real, he said.

"The discussions we're having are 100 percent real," Carlson said. "It would be irresponsible as a group of trustees to not have these discussions."

Should an emergency of sorts demand immediate action, a few ideas are already on the board. If a solution was needed today, Carlson said, the Robins School Administration Building could be taken out of use and everyone and everything in it spread around to the other buildings.

"Not that anybody is dying to have me go to their building, but the reality is I'm easy to move. I don't need a space like this," Carlson said, sitting in the conference room of the second floor of Robins, where, on the east side wall, hangs a large stuffed bull elk hunted by him.

The hypothetical reconfiguration would put the administration staff, alternative school and kindergarten at Lincoln-McKinley Primary School; Highland Park Early Primary School would be for first- and second-grade students; Sunnyside Intermediate School would house third- and fourth-graders; and fifth-graders would join sixth- through eighth-graders at Havre Middle School. Havre High School would remain as is.

In addition to it serving as the technological hub, Robins also has the warehouse and freezer that feeds all the other schools in the district.

Robins was built in 1937 and, up until at least 1968, was used as junior high building. By 1976, the building was being used mostly in the same capacity as today.

The reason for the conversations is to be prepared, said Carlson, along with Board of Trustee Chair Aileen Couch, trustee Curtis Smeby and Assistant Superintendent Craig Mueller.

There are no plans to move anything around in the near future. However, there is at least one very real factor, Carlson said, that would prompt a move sooner rather than later. Money. Funding, or lack of, could spark a reconfiguration.

The reconfiguration would be the second since 2000, when the district went from neighborhood schools, eliminating Devlin, to the current setup. While declining student population was a factor then as well, that move, Carlson said, also aimed to create a more diverse student body, as well as more cohesion among all the educators teaching similar subjects.

In 2017, two preliminary architecture reports were done, one for Havre High, the other for Lincoln-McKinley.

The PAR reinforced the list of needed repairs or upgrades for Havre High includes the bathrooms, the roof ventilation system and the science rooms.

"At a board planning we were talking about how to do it," Carlson said. "Are there going to be dollars available like quality schools project? It is another bond project? Are they dollars we can do through the building reserve?"

As for Lincoln-McKinley, it comes down to needing of an elevator and a makeover that would include upgrading all the classrooms, not unlike what was done at Sunnyside years ago, Carlson said.

"One of the problems with Lincoln-McKinley is we don't have elevator access to the second-story classrooms. You can't put children in kindergarten, first or second grade in any one of those classrooms," Carlson said. "The other thing is it automatically rules out any of our disabled students."

Even careful planning might not be enough to solve the problem without getting an elevator, he added.

"You may not put a student that has a disability in one of those classrooms to start the year, but legs get broken, different things happen," he said.

The best scenario is to have those classrooms available to all students and stakeholders, Carlson said, which is what makes the needed upgrades so expensive.

"It becomes a case of, do you wanna do a $5 to $6 million-project and find out down the road that you don't have students to fill the building?" he said. "That's a pretty significant thing to go out to your community and say, 'Hey, we'd like to do this.'"

Eliminating Lincoln-McKinley is another of reconfiguration option discussed among the trustees.

Lots of ideas are written on the board, Couch said.

"You just throw every idea out. You write it up on the board, you talk about it, and obviously, not all of them stay on the board," Couch said. "Then we depend on our staff, who is in the schools ... and then we listen to the staff.

"Obviously we want to make that decision together. We are concerned about what the community thinks. That's why we're not making this decision tomorrow."

Planning and monthly board of trustee meetings are open to the public and people are encouraged to come and speak, Couch said.

There are lot of things to consider on the topic, the district leaders said, one being safety.

"Tell me what Havre middle school looks like if our fifth grade is at Havre Middle School tomorrow," Carlson said.

The issue of transitions is also something to think about.

"There's also the issue of changes from one building to another. That creates issues for the students," Smeby said. "If there is a time when students struggle, it's oftentimes during that transition."

Declining rural student population is a longtime nationwide trend, one Havre has certainly not been immune to. Large farms, and efficient farming equipment that can be run by one person, which eliminates the need for more human workers, has resulted in not only fewer farms but smaller families. Fewer families with less children has put fewer pupils behind school desks.

"If we go back 20 years, we've lost a quarter of our population over that time. We were about 2,500 students. We're down under 1,800. You can't lose that many students and not have to face some stark reality," Carlson said.

However, while state funding runs a parallel road with population, small may not be all bad. According to Center for Rural Affairs, smaller schools have advantages, and in some cases, may be even better:

"Nearly every study of educational attainment finds that small schools, whether measuring graduation or dropout rates, have a significant greater ability to graduate students than do large schools,"according to CFRA.org.

"Studies have found that extracurricular participation rates are higher and more varied in small schools than in large schools, and alienation from the school environment is lower in smaller schools. Research shows that participation in extracurricular activities is a significant indicator of academic success; those involved in activities tend to be better students," its website says.

Any conversation about an educational institution, inevitably always touches on curriculum. Any time there are talks like the one now, the idea of cutting programs is brought up. And it is, indeed, possible to cut some programs and stay accredited, Carlson said. However, curriculum, Carlson and company agreed, is an area that hasn't diminished.

"If we look solely at accreditation, there are some things we can take off the table," Carlson said. "Is that going to be the best for the students in our community? I would tell you no. Not every school our size has such a robust arts curriculum. That's usually one of the first places looked at when talks of cuts."

Smeby said, "Look at what we have at the middle school with industrial arts. How many middle school in Montana have that right now? I would say not too many. ... To take that away, that makes a difference to middle schoolers who are trying to figure out what they're exploring."

Whatever happens in the future, near or otherwise, everyone agreed, they are happy to have the opportunity to try and solve these problems.

"These are problems that if you think about it, we can provide solutions for.," Smeby said. "That's encouraging. Maybe there'll be a diamond mine found just outside of Havre. Then we won't have to worry about that."