District closes Liberty as school year starts

Students headed back to class Wednesday for the new school year -- but not at Liberty Elementary, which the school district's board of trustees voted last week to close in response to a continuing trend of declining enrollment on base.

Only one of the three schools on base is now open. Stephensen Middle School was closed six years ago due to declining enrollment. Today, only students in grades K-4 remain on base at the Base Primary School. Students in fifth and sixth grades are being bused to Hacker Middle School in town.

The move will save the school district approximately $170,000, but that wasn't the reason the change was made.

The fifth grade at the base school was down to only 35 students this year, and the sixth grade to only 37.

"Really, that's two large for one teacher" in each of those grades, board chairman Jim Alexander said, "and it's too small for two teachers."

The 72 students will be added to the 745 enrolled at Hacker, which won't be a record for the town middle school, but will push to full capacity, and may even result in the district placed one or two temporary buildings at the site.

The district had hoped it would not have to make the decision to close Liberty this year, "but there has been a continuing trend toward decreasing enrollment on base," Alexander explained, and after the enrollment numbers from two weeks ago were reviewed, "we really didn't have a choice. We had to make the decision right away, so people could have time to adjust.

"Six years ago, we had 1,400 students on base. Now we have about 400," although schools in town are showing marginal increases in enrollment.

In part, the decline of the base schools is due to the changing demographics on base, after it transitioned to a fighter wing. In general, base personnel are younger, and while they're having children at normal rates, they're transferring out before those children enter school.

In order to keep two of the three buildings on base from being mothballed in recent years, the school district even moved some of its gifted and talented and special educations programs there, but, Alexander noted, since 911 it's been harder to get on base, especially for non-military parents who need to go out there to pick up a child.

Alexander said the board recognized what closing the school meant for parents on base whose children suddenly were going to be bused into town.

"The base parents have obvious concerns. It's nice to be able to have your child walk home from school" and not have to deal with the extra hassles of getting them ready for an early bus, or having to go into town to pick them up if they stay after school for an activity.

But, Alexander said, "what we have to focus on is educating kids in a meaningful way. We try to offer as many diverse educational opportunities as we can, but we can't offer them to just 70 kids." By moving the students to Hacker, the full range of elective and "exploratory" classes are available to the students. "So, for many of these students (from the base) their educational opportunities are expanding.

"As difficult as this decision was to make, I think it will reap some real benefits for the kids," he said.

Overall, district enrollment actually is up this year by about 269 students overall, with 69 new students at the junior high showing the biggest jump among the town schools. The high school was up 56 students, East Elementary climbed by only 14, but North Elementary grew by 53 students and West Elementary by 46. Not including the 72 students from base, Hacker was up 39 students. Both of the base schools lost enrollment by small numbers, but enough to tip the board's decision. The board had warned parents at Liberty Elementary last year that such a decision was possible, based on this fall's enrollment.

Superintendent of Schools Tim McMurtrey said this year's enrollment went much smoother than last year, due to more computer stations being available at the high school and junior high.

The district begins the school year with a number of changes in both personnel and curriculum.

Jeff Johnson takes the helm as the new principal at the high school, with James Gilbert, the former vice principal at the junior high moving up to the vice principal spot Johnson vacated at the high school.

Ernie Elliott remains as junior high principal but the new vice principal there is Albert Longhurst, whom most long-time residents remember as a former star athlete for the district many years ago.

A number of teachers retired last year, part of a wave of retirements over the last few years as baby boomers began reaching retirement age. "We've lost some experience," McMurtrey said, "but in exchange we've gotten some new blood and new ideas."

Responding to problems it has identified from previous test scores, the district has adopted an entirely new math curriculum this year.

In addition, the district adopted new music textbooks and materials this year. "Last year," McMurtrey said, "a teacher brought out a record player and one of the kindergarten students told him 'that's the biggest CD player I've ever seen.' We've gotten rid of the record players this year."

Teachers also have made changes in other curriculum areas to bring them more into line with the tests being required by the state to graduate. Other than adding math classes to match the new state standards, the Mountain Home School District still maintains a higher standard for graduation, including six more credits, than the state requires under its increased standards for graduation.

McMurtrey said the state expanded graduation requirements from 42 to 46 credits (Mountain Home requires 52) to graduate, but because of the mandated increase in math and science credits the state is requiring, "the electives suffer. When you're limited in how many teachers you can afford, after all the state requirements are done, that means fewer elective classes are available. Personally, I think that hurts the educational opportunities of students.

"At this point, I can't afford anything new," and in fact, a computer class had to be cut at Hacker and some remedial classes had to be dropped to make room for the expanded set of core classes.

Despite the tougher standards than the state requires, and all the curriculum changes that have been made in the last two years, McMurtrey expects the district will again be identified as having "failed" in the Annual Yearly Progress standards set by the federal government under the No Child Left Behind Act.

That act "fails" districts if any specific category of student (where the district has at least 30 students in the category) is below certain base-line levels. Mountain Home has failed to have students who don't speak English meet the minimum standards on the state and federal reading tests (which are given in English), and the special ed students have failed to meet the minimum standards in math.

By law, the district must send a letter to all parents advising them they have the right to send their children to some other high school in the district. There is only one high school in the district, however, "so essentially we're just wasting a lot of postage to meet the law," McMurtrey said.

At the same time, he noted, the federal government has cut funding for the special programs that help students whose primary language isn't English, for special education programs, and the programs to help economically disadvantaged students get extra help with their reading skills.

And that means fewer paraprofessionals (teacher aides) in the classrooms, and a reduced staff for the popular Parents as Teachers program. The latter was nearly cut entirely until Gov. Risch freed up some additional money in the state budget for a limited ability to continue the program.

"It's very tough" to meet the (increased state and federal) criteria, especially with the funding cuts, McMurtrey said, "but we're working on it. The kids will improve."

The district will not be able, again, to afford to adopt a junior ROTC program, but Geoff Schroeder, now that he's back from the National Guard's deployment to Iraq, will again volunteer to teach the highly popular military education class at the high school.

With reduced funding from the state and federal level, the district has had to tighten its fiscal belt. "We've made some cuts, just about everywhere," he said, including freezing administrative salaries and giving himself a pay cut, but most of the cuts have been outside the classroom "so we've tried to have the least effect possible on the quality of instruction the kids are getting.

"We just have to work harder and keep a positive attitude.

"The bottom line is, we'll haul 'em across that line and graduate them" with the skills they need to survive in the real world," he said.

"It's gotten harder, but we'll do it. The kids come first."