Crested Butte Community School off to a good start with more students

CBCS sees boost in enrollment

Another school year got under way at Crested Butte Community School and across much of the Gunnison RE1J School District on Monday, August 29. Superintendent Jon Nelson says “everything went smoothly.”

While it’s still too early to know if the size of the overall student body will stay stable into October when the state gets the official tally, Nelson said the number of students coming through the doors seems to be holding steady since classes let out last year.
For public schools counting on money passed down from the Colorado Department of Education, students translate into funding and while the amount of money coming to the district dropped by more than $1.1 million this year, an increase in the number of students should help balance that.
At Crested Butte Community School, Principal Stephanie Niemi agrees that things got off to a “very smooth start” this year. She says the secondary grades took on an additional 28 students and the community school, across all grades, gained 17 students, even with some families moving out of the district.
After projecting the number of students would be the same this year as it was last year, Niemi says the boost in student numbers is a bonus.
Because of the growth in the secondary grades, the school offered an orientation for new middle and high school students and their families to help them all get acquainted with CBCS.
Fourth grade is still the biggest class in the elementary school, with 51 students, but it wasn’t big enough to split into three classes, as administrators and staff had hoped. In order to carve out another class, reducing each class size, the district would have needed just two more fourth graders.
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So, as Niemi says, “by valley standards, those classes are big. But by real world standards, they’re really not.”
This year, the district faced another round of budget cuts that meant the elementary Spanish program and the elementary counseling position at CBCS would be cut, along with many field trips and transportation to some sporting events.
Superintendent Nelson says the district will get its student athletes to meets and games, but then the athletic directors at those schools will decide if the school’s vehicle should stay to take students home, or leave if there are enough parents to handle the team’s transportation.
Additionally, he said, “Each sport will look at giving up transportation to one or two contests if they know enough parents are going to be there and are able to get students home.”
Niemi says the Crested Butte community has already stepped up to help cover the cost of the counseling position through a private donation, and donations are sending some elementary students to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory for field trips. And to take some of the load from the school’s only two administrators, the CBCS PTA paid for Brandon Hamilton to be hired as the middle school athletic director.
Next year the former elementary Spanish teacher, who went on leave this year as the program was being eliminated, will be able to return to the secondary Spanish program.
So considering such a large cut in funding is coming on the heels of a huge renovation at Crested Butte Community School, in a community willing to support its kids, Niemi doesn’t think any of the 70 teachers or 570 students at the school will be left wanting this year.
She points out that two years ago the school had a classroom stuffed into a staff closet and now they have nearly twice the square footage and even have a classroom empty this year. There is also $4,000 of technology in every room and classes set up to help staff learn how to use it.
Of the new space and upgrades, Niemi says, “It’s been fabulous.”