Church basement to help ease school crowding

ROYAL CITY - There may be little talk now about crowding in Royal Schools this fall, but the problem persists, according to Superintendent Rose Search.

Search said the district won't know the actual enrollment until the first official student count after Labor Day. But every principal reported an increase, based on registrations, at the last school board meeting of Aug. 22.

District public relations specialist Rich Gregoire reported that the kindergarten program has grown to 152 students. Search said administrators were expecting about 120. The total number of students at Red Rock Elementary is upwards of 750.

Rose said the high school and middle school can still handle the growth, but the district will rent the basement of the United Methodist Church for its preschool program. That will ease the crowding at Red Rock.

"We're still negotiating the rent," Search said.

The United Methodist basement, which was recently remodeled, is about the size of a RRE classroom. One preschool class will use it Mondays and Thursdays. Another group will use in on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The special education pre-school will continue in the Red Rock building. Lunch for the regular preschool students will be transported from RRE.

With the pre-school at the church, the classroom it employed in the fifth-grade pod will become a second-grade reading room in the morning and a small group reading room in the afternoon.

That will make the old second-grade reading room available for a kindergarten class, giving the district seven kindergarten rooms with 21 or 22 students in each.

Meanwhile, the district has scheduled a school board-adminis??tration work session, date to be announced, probably in October. The community group that has been studying the problem will next meet on Sept. 26.

Search said everyone is invited to attend these meetings. The time is fast approaching when the district will have to rent portable classrooms if a construction plan is not approved.