Bond issue for new elementary before Jackson voters

Casting a vote for or against a proposition to build a new elementary school will take consideration in several areas when Jackson voters head to the polls two weeks from today.

The Jackson School District wants to use bonds to pay for construction of an approximately $16 million new school on North Lacey Street that supporters of the proposition say will alleviate overcrowding in other schools and traffic congestion, allow for growth in the future and help the district meet demand for early childhood education services.

Jackson voters last approved a proposition for a $19.5 million bond issue to add space to the high school in 2005. That work was completed in 2010, with a total cost of $22.5 million, with the difference covered by interest earned on bonds, said Wade Bartels, chief financial officer for the district.

Passage of this year's proposition wouldn't raise the tax rate of $3.80 per $1,000 of assessed valuation currently paid by voters in the district; instead it would extend the time the district takes to pay off what it owes on bonds. Bonds currently owed by the district are scheduled to be paid off in 2021. A new elementary school would mean that the bonds would be paid off in 2031, said Dr. Ron Anderson, Jackson's superintendent. Around $0.33 of the current tax levy goes to bond payments. That would also not change if the proposition passes.

Operating expenses for the new school would come from the district's general operations budget, Anderson said. The district would cover that by no longer paying $50,000 in rent every year to New McKendree United Methodist Church, where the district currently rents space for preschool classes. Anderson said the district does not anticipate there will be additional costs related to changes in transportation for students if the new school is built.

Lizzie Snyder, front left, Megan Hoffmeister, right, Jenny Duncan, center, Kyle Seabaugh and their classmates dive into their books Monday during their fourth-grade selective reading session at West Lane Elementary in Jackson. (Laura Simon)

Space problems

Jackson's six elementary schools have 205 more students now than in 2002, according to enrollment data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. That number has fluctuated slightly for several schools in the past decade, but Orchard Drive Elementary and West Lane Elementary have the highest enrollment numbers this year that either school has ever had, with 579 and 486 students, respectively. South Elementary has 545 students this year, down slightly from its highest-ever number of 566 in 2009.

Those schools are targeted in the district's plans for space relief. The new school would contain four sections of kindergarten through fifth grades.

According to assistant superintendent Dr. Beth Emmendorfer, some of the largest class sizes this school year can be seen in first and third grades at South Elementary, with 27 to 28 students per class; at Orchard Drive in kindergarten, with 25 to 26 students per class; and at West Lane in fourth and fifth grades, with 26 to 27 students per class.

According to DESE's Missouri School Improvement Plan, 20 is the desirable number of students per class for kindergarten through second grades; 22 students is desirable for third and fourth grades, and 25 is desirable for fifth and sixth grades. Studies in the past 10 years on the relationship between class sizes and student outcomes vary. Some found students in smaller classes progress faster and encounter fewer difficulties, while others showed no evidence of a positive effect on achievement.

Emmendorfer said the district has had to come up with ways in recent years to make sure all students in larger classes are receiving the individual attention they need, using tactics such as adding teacher aides in some classrooms.

"You just try to get creative when you don't have enough space," she said.

Preschool growth

Plans for the new school include a 10-classroom centralized early childhood center that district officials say will help meet a growing demand for public preschool services.

The district began offering Title I preschool in 2002 in addition to state-mandated early special childhood education for ages 3 to 5. Children with no developmental delays or disabilities also attend the district's eight preschool classes, held at South Elementary and New McKendree United Methodist Church. This spring, 268 children were enrolled and 145 were on a waiting list. Ninety-three of those children do not qualify as Title I or special education students.

Emmendorfer said children without delays or disabilities are considered "peer role models" in the integrated classrooms. Their parents pay tuition for their attendance.

Holly Lintner, whose youngest child started kindergarten in the Jackson School District, said her son wouldn't have overcome some sensory issues he experienced without the credentialed staff of the district's preschool, and she thinks more public preschools are needed in the district.

"His kindergarten teacher told us she would have never guessed that he had any problems," she said, "because he had improved so much by the time he got there, and it was from the time he spent in the preschool program."

Cathy Clark, owner of A Small World Preschool in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, along with other owners of private preschools in Jackson, say the school district's offering of tuition-based preschool to children without delays or disabilities hurts private business.

The bond issue is a "no-win" situation for private preschools, Clark said.

Most of the private preschools in Jackson have seen dips in enrollments and no longer have waiting lists, she said. She sees public preschool programs as initially being developed to help low-income families in large, inner-city school districts.

Clark said she does believe there is a need for public preschools in some areas, like parts of Cape Girardeau served by Blanchard and Jefferson elementary schools, but that Jackson's offering of tuition-based preschool is different. The district does not charge tuition for the half-day programs it offers.

"I know we have also been hurt by the economy and people losing jobs and grandparents pitching in to help," Clark said, "but this really seems more like government getting in the way of private business. That trickles down, because we use local services, too."

Clark said she advises parents looking for preschools to explore all their options fully.

Janice Jones, the coordinator of Success by 6 for the United Way, said both public and private options in the area offer excellent early childhood programs.

"For some children who do have special needs, the public schools can provide speech therapy and various therapies, and it also begins at age 3. When kids start kindergarten, those services are already in place. So there is a continual flow," Jones said. "We know the earlier those interventions are made, the better off kids will be."

Jones said local private preschools, even those with high-quality programs, will likely be slightly hurt by more availability of public preschool, even though she thinks many programs are doing a great job of readying students for kindergarten.

"It's really about the choice of the parents," she said.

Jones said while the continuity offered by public preschoolers moving to kindergarten is good, so are the opportunities in children gain at private preschools, where learning material necessary for kindergarten is often done using students' own interests and creativity.

Plans for the school call for a 98,000-square-foot building on 15 acres the district already owns on the west side of North Lacey Street north of Stotler Way.

The proposition will be on the ballot for voters in the Jackson School District in the April 3 election.

A community campaign group has formed in support of the proposition. Keep Jackson Kids First is mailing out materials with information about the proposed project and related issues, started a website and a Facebook page and posted a video on YouTube. The Jackson Chamber of Commerce also announced its endorsement of the proposition earlier this month.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

North Lacey Street and Stotler Way, Jackson, MO

614 E. Adams St., Jackson, MO