School buildings to close in Winner

WINNER — Winner School District will close its middle school and two rural schools in July 2011 in an effort to save $324,538 for future budgets.

Declining enrollment is prompting the move. Compared to 1994-95 when Winner had 1,174 students, enrollment has dropped to 683 in 2009-10, Superintendent Mike Hanson said.

Winner will move fifth- and sixth-graders to the elementary school, while seventh and eighth-graders will shift to the high school for 2011-12.

Hanson said the cost to operate the rural K-8 schools in Hamill and Millboro is $103,788, excluding district expenses, with a per-student cost of $5,365. Each school had 11 students this year.

“We would not be able to fund the 2012-13 school year with our current positions, and our current structure had to change,” he said. “It was imperative the district had to engage in some sort of restructuring.”

The board’s decision signals the end of an era for maintaining rural schools in the district. Hamill and Millboro will be the last to close — long after a time when as many as seven rural schools operated in the 1990s.

The action also marks the second time the board has tried to close the two schools. Last year, the board rejected a resolution to do so because of negative community input, Hanson said.

Steve Kubik, of Hamill, was the lone school board member who opposed closing the Hamill school this year.

Despite knowing there would be possibly eight students there this fall, he knows the convenience of having children close to home and the value of saving parents a 30-mile drive to school. His four children attended there.

“Given all that and being from Hamill and knowing the importance of having a school here, I couldn’t in good conscience vote to close it,” he said.

The move also comes four months after the district paid off its middle school and elementary school addition, built in the mid-1990s.

Winner school officials have made cuts in the past. Twentyfive positions were slashed in 2008-09, including a technology coordinator that saved $60,000. The elimination of a maintenance supervisor and data coordinator who resigned during 2009-10 saved about $80,000.

School Board Chairman Mike Calhoon, of rural Ideal, said the district recently had 24 empty classrooms — six each at the elementary and middle schools, seven at the high school and three at the central office.

“As a board chairman, I would rather close buildings than fire 20 teachers,” he said. “For now, we have cut as many teachers as we possibly can.”

Focus groups involving community members began meeting in January to discuss methods of how to proceed, Hanson said. School officials discussed the plan in April.

Hanson assured there is sufficient room to accommodate two additional grades at the elementary and high schools. Fifth grade will move to the K-4 elementary school this fall.

An estimated 40 sixthgraders will then move to the elementary, with the roughly 45 fifth graders, in 2011-12. At the high school, a projected 47 students in seventh grade and 42 in eighth grade will attend classes.

Wings will be configured to provide a middle school atmosphere at the high school, Hanson said.

This summer’s departure of Elementary Principal Bill Kaiser will mean that Middle School Principal Brian Naasz will assume that position. Hanson will take over Naasz’s duties, and the central office will move to the middle school this fall from the rural schools/administration building next to the high school.

The likelihood of the middle school becoming the permanent site for the central office remains to be seen, Hanson said.

Calhoon can foresee using the middle school for that purpose or finding a joint use for it with the city or county.

He said he would like to see the district sell the Sports Center, a building on Main Street used for practices, and see its use shift to the administration building near the high school.

Sara Hammerbeck, whose two daughters just finished second grade and kindergarten at the Hamill school, has appreciated having two teachers there in the past.

But she noticed a difference when the district dropped the school to one teacher who had to instruct kindergarten through seventh grade. Parents and grandparents volunteered throughout the year to help out.

“It was good we had a year to see what we would have with one teacher and what we could try,” Hammerbeck said. “Of course, we would love to have the school open. … The reality is we don’t have the money.

“It’s near and dear to our heart.”

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