MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — With enrollment down and money tight, Evergreen Elementary School may not make it another year.
The Edmonds School Board is seriously considering closing the Mountlake Terrace school by fall 2009.
Around 25 people attended a public hearing Tuesday evening to learn more about the possible closure and debate the issue.
If Evergreen closes, most of its 277 students would attend Terrace Park School or Mountlake Terrace Elementary, which are both nearby. Under the current plan, seventh- and eighth-graders currently attending Terrace Park would move to Brier Terrace Middle School in Lynnwood. Terrace Park would stop serving seventh- and eighth-graders.
Megan Hudson has two sons at Terrace Park. She likes the kindergarten through eighth-grade format and doesn’t want the school to lose its upperclassmen.
Two other schools in the Edmonds School District have students in kindergarten through eighth grade, but students must win a lottery to be admitted.
“I’m vehemently opposed to dismantling the only nonlottery K-8 school that we have left in the district,” Hudson said. “It’s a school that has done really well and it’s a school the district recognizes as doing really well. They’re taking that option away from us, and they’re taking it away from us despite the fact that they have other schools the Evergreen students could go to.”
While district staff studies the options, they’re also considering creating a middle school program for gifted kids at Brier Terrace, said district spokeswoman Jennifer Piplic. That program would probably serve many of the seventh- and eighth-graders who have graduated from Terrace Park’s Challenge Program for highly capable students, which ends after sixth grade.
“We don’t have a specific program for highly capable middle schoolers,” Piplic said. “It seems now might be a good time to really evaluate whether that would be a good option.”
Evergreen Elementary School, which is about 40 years old, wound up on the chopping block because it is the second smallest school in the district. The school board is also considering closing the district’s smallest school, Woodway Elementary in Edmonds.
Smaller schools are often less financially efficient to operate than larger schools because they generally need the same number of administrators, and building costs are spread among fewer students, school officials said.
The district spends $778 per student to operate Evergreen Elementary. That doesn’t include teacher salaries and other costs that depend on enrollment. By comparison, at Martha Lake Elementary, the district pays $398 per student. About 600 students attend Martha Lake.
The board is scheduled to vote on the school closures Dec. 16.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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