The once-assured expansion of Clearview Elementary School to a K-8 facility will not go forward anytime soon, as the issue will not be one of the questions asked of St. Cloud School District voters in the Nov. 3 referendum. A group of around 30 Clearview administrators, parents and teachers met with St. Cloud School Board Chairman Dennis Whipple, Board Member Bruce Hentges and School District Communications Director Tami DeLand at a workshop at the district offices in St. Cloud Wednesday night.
Whipple told the group at the beginning of the meeting that he had wanted to be able to tell the Clearview parents and staff about the referendum decision before the upcoming school board meeting so that they did not have to “read about it in the newspapers” afterwards.
Citing a lack of enrollment growth, high administrative costs over and above the cost of expanding the Clearview structure and a lack of enthusiasm for the K-8 expansion from potential voters in a district survey, Whipple said that the district administration will not recommend to the school board that the Clearview program be part of the fall referendum.
Referendum questions likely to appear will deal with renovations to Apollo High School, other district-wide improvements to facilities, increases in technology and district-wide safe and secure entrances to all school buildings, Whipple said.
According to a document provided at the meeting, the current enrollment at Clearview “does not support a K-8 model.” It also states that current enrollment would make staffing and programming for a K-8 facility difficult, and would create a number of inefficiencies.
A projected “non-immersion” scenario for Clearview with 40 students per grade level would include seven full time teachers at a cost of $364,000, an assistant principal costing $100,000 and additional clerical staff at $30,000 for a total of $494,000. Cost per student in this estimate would be $4,117. Other activities based on a K-8 model would add another $70,000 per year. Moving to a secondary scenario would also mean that Clearview teachers holding only elementary licenses would not be able to remain at the school.
Parents in the audience raised a number of questions about the process, including asking why the district had gone to the trouble of having architectural plans drawn up for the Clearview expansion when the administration already had the enrollment figures and projections. Others raised issues of perceived safety for Clearview students transitioning into urban St. Cloud schools, and noted that many parents are opting to send their middle-school children to nearby districts, including Becker.
Whipple expressed sympathy for those concerns, but he also said that students were no leaving because of dissatisfaction with the education opportunities available in the St. Cloud district, which continues to provide “great educational opportunities for Clearview students.”
