The Union Public School District is running out of room especially on the elementary school campus for the influx of students coming into lower grades.
Union Elementary Principal Hannah Wren is facing a challenge needing space for four kindergarten classes along with having four classes of each grade at the elementary school. The district is also needing more special education classes as their numbers as a district rise.
To that end, incoming Superintendent Dr. Tyler Hansford has proposed a few ideas that could help create more space for the rising student population, at least in the short term.
Because something needs to happen prior to the upcoming school year to create room, Hansford has floated an idea of purchasing smaller prefabricated structures that they could create both regular classrooms, special education spaces and other spaces the district needs to make way for more students.
Hansford said these would not be like the classroom trailers, as they would be prebuilt and installed in vacant areas of the elementary campus. He also proposed building a small building to serve the same purpose. He also even suggested using the vacant Superintendent’s house as a place to offer additional instructional space.
While some special education classes would be moved into either of these options, they would have to contain some traditional classrooms or other instructional areas to be compliant by law.
“Additional numbers is a good thing. That means people want to be in school here. That’s a blessing, but it means we’ve got to have somewhere to put them. We all know that costs a lot of money,” Hansford said.
If the district were to build a new structure, it is likely the cost would exceed $100,000 and would require an architect. Hansford inquired what the legal definition of that $100,000 is whether it was the cost of the completing the project or if it was just the cost of construction. Board attorney Doug Smith said he would look into it, but he cautioned that there are specific rules that would have to follow including getting bids on construction.
Last school year, the district investigated the possibility of building eight new classrooms using COVID federal funding. The bids came in with a price tag of over $1.8 million. Hansford said they didn’t want to go down that road at this time.
Lori Wilcher, district director of state and federal programs, also added that it was to their advantage to use existing classrooms for kindergarten or pre-k over building new classrooms.
“When you build new buildings (for pre-k and kindergarten), that falls under that early childhood in the handbook. If I’m not mistaken, that maybe it was put out by the Department of Health because it falls into where the daycares and the different things are,” Wilcher said. “So there’s some things that if you build new buildings with pre-K or K, that you have to have certain, such as certain sink space, bathroom space or shelf space. That would mean an added cost.”
Hansford said they split up several classrooms to use for special education rooms. If they could provide a new space for those areas, it would free up additional classrooms for kindergarten and pre-k in the future. Several board members expressed interest in being able to add pre-k classrooms. Currently, they only have one classroom being paid out of federal title monies, which selects students with the most need.
Hansford said they would continue to investigate the issue and bring it back to the board at the next meeting Feb. 15 at 6 p.m.
