District mulls closing base school

The Mountain Home School District, facing a massive loss of funding from state and federal sources that could amount to up to 10 percent of its total budget, will probably close a school on base before classes begin next fall.

Declining federal forest funds, delays by Congress in approving federal Impact Aid money, and anticipated cuts in state funding (which constitute the bulk of the district's budget) is likely to leave the district $800,000 to $1.2 million short of the district's current budget next year, Supt. Jerrie LeFevre told the Mountain Home News this week. The shortfall this year alone, due to the holdbacks ordered by the governor, will be over a quarter of a million dollars.

That, combined with declining enrollment at the base schools, will probably cause the board of trustees to order either an elementary school or the middle school on base to be closed.

In addition, the district will sharply cut back on supplies, some maintenance work, may eliminate some administrative positions, and may not replace some teachers who will be lost this spring due to normal attrition as they retire or move on to other jobs.

Larry Slade, for example, who has resigned as principal of McKenna High School, will not be replaced. Supt. Jerrie LeFevre and Deputy Supt. Doug Johnson will provide administrative duties for the alternative school.

And some assistance principals, as well as some secretaries, building aides, computer aides and library aides, may lose their jobs while the district struggles to avoid going in the red.

The board of trustees will meet next Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m. at the district offices, to decide on how it will handle the funding shortfall. The district employs about 30 staff members over and above what the state will reimburse.

The school board also is likely to freeze all administrators' salaries for the coming year, and will be discussing with the teachers' union the possibility of freezing those salaries as well, if such a move would not violate the master contract. Providing steps and grade increases for teachers next year is "doubtful" LeFevre told the board.

Although school officials anticipate that the economy is likely to turn around this year, and funding levels will be restored next year, "if you don't have the money, you've got to make some adjustments," LeFevre said. "The one thing we don't want to do is sacrifice the education of any child for a year."

School Board member Luise House said the board's major concern was trying to soften the blow of the funding shortfalls at the classroom level. "We're going to try and do everything we can to make sure the kids are the last ones to be impacted by these cuts," she said.

She said the board, which has been working closely with the teacher's union, is likely to order major cutbacks in purchases, in supplies, and in staff training. "After that, it gets down to the emotional issues, class size, site closings, decreases in staff. We have no concrete plan right now, but a lot of options."

School Board Chairman Jim Alexander noted that cuts in supplies, for example, could hurt local suppliers, and teachers often wind up paying for some supplies out of their own pockets in such situations, or they ask parents to buy the supplies.

"That's the last thing we want to see happen," he said, admitting the class fees already hurt some parents. "When we do things like this, some kids get left behind" because they can't afford to take some classes.

LeFevre has submitted six options to the board, designed to improve efficiencies and cut costs, although many of those options would see increases in transportation costs that would partially offset the savings.

Under one option, Liberty Elementary School on base would be closed, the 66 students in the seventh grade at Stephensen Middle School would be bussed to Hacker Middle School, and Stephensen would be reorganized into a grade 4-6 configuration, while the base Primary School would consolidate to grades K-3.

Liberty is the most expensive school to operate on base and needs roof and wiring repair.

That option would require that temporary buildings be set up at Hacker and the basement of the annex remodeled to handle the extra students. Hacker already is overcrowded.

Another option would involve moving fifth-grade students back to the elementary schools. North would require temporary buildings to handle the extra students it would receive.

The district also could move the seventh grade to the junior high, gutting the middle school concept developed with such great effort over the years, and crowding the junior high. Or, the district could bus all seventh-grade students to Stephensen on base, which has the room, but transportation costs would be high and school officials anticipate many parents would object because of the difficulty of getting on base to pick up their children if they needed to.

The ninth grade could be moved to the high school, but that would seriously crowd the high school and could have an impact on the number of elective classes being offered, at a time when the state is mandating an increase in electives. The high school and junior high students could switch buildings, but the lack of high school level athletic facilities at the junior high, and the distance of the vocational facilities at the high school annex to the junior high create problems.

"None of these options are perfect," Alexander said, "and we're likely to 'tweak' whatever one we chose, but we have very little choice. We have to find a way to cut costs, at least for the next year."