CANYON COUNTY, Idaho — The Middleton School District is facing challenges as student enrollment continues to rise, leading to overcrowded classrooms at local schools. "There are realities we are working on," said Carrie Woolstencroft, a second-grade teacher at Heights Elementary School.
Teachers at Heights Elementary express concerns that increased student numbers "do affect the quality of education our students are getting," according to Woolstencroft. District leaders report that the school is currently at 145% capacity.
Principal Nicole Kristensen noted that the school was originally built for 360 students. "When I first became the principal here, we were at about 400 students, depending on the day. I just checked our enrollment, and we are at 598," Kristensen said.
To accommodate over 200 additional students, the district has resorted to using temporary portables on campus—22 of them to be exact. This solution is not ideal for Woolstencroft, who stated, "Because we are outside of the building, students need to be able to come inside to use the restroom. When we do things like put our work in the hallways, the students love to walk by all the writing and all the wonderful things the other children are learning. Our students don't get that; our things are in our classroom."
"This is the point where we just have a lot of students coming in that we just don't have the room for," Middleton School District Superintendent Mark Gee said. Gee is hopeful that a proposed $19.9 million bond will help alleviate space shortages by funding the construction of a new school. He added that the district is also prioritizing maintenance needs and enhancing security on school grounds.
This focus on security comes just days after an incident where a man accessed the middle and high school while posing as a student. "It certainly drew our attention to what we need to do to identify that somebody is there that's not," Gee said.
A developer has donated land for the new school, and after the passage of last year’s school modernization bill, the school board set aside $8 million for the project, effectively lowering the bond's total cost to $19.9 million. This would result in a cost of $34 per $100,000 in assessed property value for taxpayers.
"We anticipate that once we are able to do this, all of our schools will be under capacity and have room for new students as they come in," Gee said.
If the bond fails again, Gee indicated that the district may have to implement more temporary portables at additional schools.
