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School crowding put to test Photo by Jim Craven Students at Little Butte Elementary School surge toward lunch Wednesday in Eagle Point. Growing enrollment is forcing school administrators to come up with emergency solutions such as moving some of the lunchtime crowds onto a stage. Boards study problem in Eagle Point, Phoenix-Talent By VICKI GUARINO Public meetings set School boards are asking communities to participate in studies of building needs in the Eagle Point and Phoenix-Talent districts. Committees have just begun to organize. Meetings are scheduled as follows. Eagle Point -- 6 p.m. Oct.5 at White City Elementary School, 2630 Maple Court, White City. Committee will review information gathered during the summer about needs, potential financing, growth projections. Phoenix-Talent -- 6:30 p.m. Oct. 5, Talent Middle School, 102 Christian Ave., Talent. Community to review schools tour and begin identifying each school's most significant needs. Students and teachers aren't the only ones returning to classrooms this fall. In the Phoenix-Talent and Eagle Point districts, community groups are walking corridors and checking out cafeterias. Committees of parents, business owners and retirees are joining school staff and students in studies of overcrowding and building needs. Ultimately, these groups will be advising their local school boards on whether new schools need to be built to accommodate growing enrollment and developing communities. Both community groups are holding meetings next week. The two districts are eying the possibility of seeking funding from taxpayers in bond measures a year from now. Bond plans also are being discussed by Central Point and Rogue River school boards, but no community advisory committees have organized -- at least not yet. All four school districts are tentatively aiming for votes in the general election next November. The date is an election in which bond measures can pass with a simple majority. In other elections, a double majority rule applies: Not only must the measure pass by a majority of yes votes, but at least 50 percent the district's registered voters must cast ballots. A $36 million measure for Central Point schools failed once because too few voters participated, despite winning the popular vote. In the 4,000-student Eagle Point district, the community group grew from a small effort to address overcrowding at Little Butte School. Classes are held in mobile classrooms, the stage has been remade for cafeteria space, and class sizes -- a fifth-grade room with 28 kids, for instance -- are too large to suit educators. So Jerry Marlia, a parent and the wife of a Little Butte teacher, began last year organizing a community group to work on the problem. Soon the group was looking at crowding at both Eagle Point city elementary schools. By the end of the last school year, the project had grown to a district-wide building needs study, including the communities of White City, Shady Cove and Trail. The school board has hired consultants to further the effort. "It's so nice to be working together," Marlia says. "My concerns and the group's concerns are now the school district's concerns. It's been really great." For too long, she says, Eagle Point has put off addressing the impact of community development on school buildings. But so have other school districts, Marlia adds. Growth is not just an Eagle Point or Shady Cove issue. "We need to get the word out that this valley is just growing by leaps and bounds and no one is ready," Marlia says. In the 2,800-student Phoenix-Talent district, accommodations for growth already have been made. Last year, three classrooms were added at Talent Middle School. Now they're filled, says Phoenix-Talent schools Superintendent Dave Willard, and the expectations are for more growth at the middle school level. Across the street from the middle school, at Talent Elementary School, staff members also are struggling to keep up with growing enrollment. The Phoenix-Talent School Board named a community group to examine the district's present needs and projected demands, and come up with possible solutions for board review. The group held its first meeting last week, touring all five schools and talking to staff. "I was really impressed with the interest and the enthusiasm of the people involved," says Phoenix-Talent board chairwoman Laura Lotspeich, who is participating in the committee work. The groups in both communities will hold several meetings throughout the fall. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA