4th Royal School District facilities meeting tonight

ROYAL CITY - The Royal School District Community Communications Committee will hold the fourth in a continuing series of facilities meetings tonight at the high school library.

The group has been discussing how to deal with over-crowded conditions in the schools. Two portable classroom units have been installed this summer, but district officials consider them a stop-gap measure that touches only the surface of the challenge.

The participants at the facilities meeting so far are favoring asking the voters for a new school construction bond in next February's elections, according to superintedent Rose Search. The leading construction option is to expand the 5th-grade POD into an intermediate school.

That project would add 230 student slots to the overall capacity of the district. The new school would add fourth grade and sixth grade to the fifth grade for a total of 360 students.

Moving fourth and sixth grades would ease crowding at the elementary school and the middle school, Search said.

- Staff report