The Mapleton Public Schools Board of Education will decide next week whether to close two schools.
Superintendent Charlotte Ciancio suggested a number of district changes to the school board during a regular meeting Tuesday including closing Welby New Technology and Enrichment Academy.
“The core rationale for closing these two schools is achievement and enrollment,” Chief Communications Officer Damon Brown said Wednesday morning.
About 200 students attend each school, and Brown said the enrollment and achievement numbers just aren’t where district officials hoped they would be.
Ciancio also asked board members to consider moving the district’s Montessori school to the Welby New Tech campus, moving the Mapleton Early Learning Center and changing class sizes.
Brown said student-teacher ratios across the district are 25-1 currently. The plan would increase that ratio to 30-1 for grades third through 12th and decrease that ratio to 20-1 for kindergarten through second grade.
Brown said increasing class size will help with anticipated budget reductions while lowering class sizes will help younger students’ academic achievement.
“Those are critical grade levels for insuring students have those fundamental skills,” he said.
The Welby site would be a good fit for the Montessori school, Brown said, because of the way the school is designed to handle project-based learning.
“The classrooms are quite a bit larger, which works really well for the Montessori type of environment,” he said, adding at a Montessori school, students are often learning by doing projects on the floor and completing hands-on assignments.
Moving the preschool from its current location at the old Mapleton High School will allow the district to expand the lease of that building with the New America School, which recently joined the district as a charter school, Brown said. It also means the district’s popular preschool programs can move to more populated areas of the district, though specifically where the preschools will move to must still be determined.
If the board decides to close the schools, Brown said the district will work with students and their families to help them chose another school to attend. Not all 400 students will have to choose a new school, as some will be graduating. In addition, Brown said, sixth graders at Enrichment Academy were already preparing to choose another school since Enrichment is a K-6.
Even though the district in November lost its bond election,, which would have provided an additional $1 million in operating revenues along with an opportunity to rebuild parts of the Skyview Campus, Brown said these changes, aside from increasing class sizes, are not based on the district’s financial condition. The district is still, like others, waiting to hear from the state how much will have to be cut. Estimates currently hover between 6 percent and 7 percent of school district budgets.
“We need to make some difficult decisions right away in order to properly prepare for the 2010-11 academic year,” Ciancio said in a press release. “These decisions best preserve our mission and commitment to student success and achievement.”
The board will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Mapleton Public School administration offices, 591 E. 80th Ave. in Denver.
Caroline Kipp can be reached at carolinek@metronorthnews.com