Jackson soon to consider space for elementary students

As Lance McClard puts it, space is at a premium at Jackson's public elementary schools.

McClard, a fourth-grade teacher at West Lane Elementary, says storage rooms have been converted into educational space and the computer lab is now mobile.

"We've got enough space for our students to be able to walk around, but if we had another class I don't know quite where we would put them," said McClard, who also serves as president of the Jackson Community Teachers Association.

South Elementary in particular, teachers and parents say, is cramped, and at one school music is mobile, taught from classroom to classroom.

There's been plenty of talk around the community in recent months about the need for a new elementary school. It's a question the Jackson School Board and district administrators eventually will have to come to terms with, said Ron Anderson, superintendent of the Jackson School District.

"All of our buildings are more than full at this point, and we have had to readjust programming to make things work," he said. "It's just a matter with the timing of when we are able to move forward."

The district has focused the past few years on the $19.5 million high school expansion project, expected to be completed this spring. The last major project before that was the junior high addition in 2001, and the last elementary school to open was South in 1998, the same year the district expanded North Elementary.

So with the high school project nearing completion, Anderson said, it will be time to look out ahead and tackle what's next. With some 2,050 students enrolled in kindergarten through fifth-grade programming in the school district, or nearly half of all students, the trends point to continued enrollment growth and dwindling space.

About 10 years ago, the district purchased land off East Main Street, on Lacy Street, the logical site for the next elementary school, Anderson said.

But he said much conversation remains before district officials begin drawing up plans or discuss the possibilities of taking a bond issue before Jackson voters.

"We'll have to evaluate the options," he said. "As we get down the road, we will consider what the possibilities would be. It's a little too early to judge that."

McClard acknowledges it's a tough time to talk expansion, as districts statewide prepare for declining state and federal funding.

"I just would agree with whatever the administrators decide," he said. "So far they've been pretty good at seeing what our schools need before there has been a problem."

mkittle@semissourian.com

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