The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Enrollment continues an upward trend
By Olivia Lueckemeyer
As the Crested Butte Community School prepares for its highest enrollment to date, teachers and class sections will be added at certain grade levels to accommodate the influx of students.
Total enrollment sits at 687 students as of Monday, August 24, a 6.2 percent increase from last year. Since 1997, school enrollment has more than doubled, and according to secondary school principal Stephanie Niemi, the upward trend is projected to continue.
“Gone are the days of one section per kindergarten through 12th grade, and to some degree gone are the days of two sections,” Niemi said. “We are going to have three sections of classes for some time to come in a lot of grades, which pushes your resources and scheduling hard.”
At the elementary level, current enrollment is at 352 students, a 5.7 percent increase from last year. Across the secondary school, which encompasses grades six to 12, enrollment sits at 335 students, a 6.7 percent increase. According to Niemi, incoming high school class sizes are growing, prompting a need for additional grade sections.
“A few years ago we started to see middle school grade levels that needed to be divided into three, and now for the first year ever we are seeing that spill into high school,” Niemi said. “Our freshman class is no longer two classes, it’s now three, so that is a big change for us.”
Although the number of teachers has stayed the same, some were moved between grades to accommodate growing class sizes at certain levels. For example, a fourth grade teacher will now teach fifth grade, due to that grade level’s experiencing growth in recent years.
In addition to growing class sizes, the introduction of full-day kindergarten also prompted the reassigning of certain educators. Thanks to funds from the mill levy override, this year the district will forgo half-day kindergarten in favor of three full-day kindergarten sections, offered free of charge to parents.
“We have the same number of classroom teachers, but the addition of a full-day kindergarten section allowed us to move one teacher from part-time to full-time, so she was able to absorb some extra students,” Sally Hensley, elementary school principal, said. “This makes things a little cleaner when scheduling.”
According to the most recent Fund 26 budget summary, $856,398 was allocated district-wide toward hiring new teachers for the 2015-2016 school year. At CBCS those funds also allowed for the hiring of an elementary level interventionist, as well as a full-time library and media specialist, something the school has, historically, been unable to provide.
“In the past our library was manned by an educational assistant. Now at every site there is a library and media specialist,” Hensley said. “So that is an additional full-time equivalent that will have direct contact with students.”
At the district level, a curriculum and assessment employee position was reinstated, a decision that Hensley says will help immensely at individual school sites.
“It’s been a need to have somebody at the helm, really taking care of curriculum and assessments as their main focus, so we were able to put that back in the budget,” Hensley explained.
According to Niemi, the secondary school also received two additional resources in the form of an elective teacher and teacher for industrial arts, a program being introduced this year.
“We’ve got a lot of nice new equipment for things like woodworking, a shop class, and hopefully some welding,” Niemi said.
Niemi explained that introducing classes that cultivate trade-based skill sets is a way of preparing students who may wish to enter the workforce directly upon graduation.
“We have been talking about this since the second year of the school opening, and we’ve always had some teachers who would do industrial arts classes here and there, but now we are launching a full-blown program, which I am truly excited about,” Niemi said.
New classes being offered this year also include Flight, Space and the Magic of Electrons at the middle school level as well as a civil engineering class at the high school level.
Although enrollment is steadily increasing, Niemi says CBCS is committed to keeping class sizes manageable. Dividing some grade levels into thirds has stretched resources, but the upside is fostering focused relationships between students and teachers.
“If you look at the sixth grade class, we divided it into three last year, and it made for terrific student teaching and learning with those reasonable class sizes,” Niemi said. “We want to continue that pattern.”
Both Niemi and superintendent Doug Tredway expressed their excitement for the upcoming school year, particularly in regards to the teachers, who they described as “extremely talented.”
“I had the privilege to make a presentation to the Crested Butte staff on their first day back to school,” Tredway said. “The energy in the school was amazing. We have a fantastic staff and I’m looking forward to another great year.”
CBCS will reopen for the 2015-2016 school year this Monday, August 31.
