Construction conundrum

Carthage school officials face a big problem in the coming years as large classes of students advance through the grades and prepare to land in a middle school and junior high that are rapidly running out of space.

Assistant Superintendent Mark Baker told the Carthage R-9 Board on Dec. 19 that large classes in the elementary grades will outstrip the space available at the middle school and junior high in the coming two years.

He said the middle school has a small amount of space left for expansion in the coming years, but the junior high, now located in the old high school building, is completely out of space for additional classrooms.

“When you look at kindergarten and first grade, those are the two largest groups with 395 in first grade and 371 in the fifth grade,” Baker said. “The next largest group would be the fourth and fifth grade together. That means in the next two years, the junior high will have 110 more kids than we have right now in the coming years. In four years, they will have 68 additional kids with no growth whatsoever.

“We talked about having two classrooms left in the field house (at the middle school) and we have 68 more kids coming into the middle school in the next couple of years.”

Baker said the growing classes will also put a strain on the number of teachers in the district.

“More kids also means more teachers, meaning we have to pay more attention on our budget,” Baker said. “We’ve added 10 or 11 staff members this year. Looking at numbers for next year we’re looking at seven new K-6 spots and that does not include junior high or high school. Even if we added those seven staff members, kindergarten and first grade will have 19 teachers in kindergarten and 19 teachers in first and even by adding two sixth grade teachers we’re only at 14 there. Honestly as those big classes get down the pipe we’ll have to bump up those staffs also.”

Baker said the district is scheduling a series of public tours of Carthage school facilities to let residents see the district’s situation and offer ideas for how to address the problem.

He said the middle school and junior high are land-locked and the district is not sure how to add classroom space to those buildings, especially the 108-year-old junior high.

“We’re going to take a tour of all the facilities, elementary, secondary and the athletic facilities just to know and for the public to actually come in and see what we have and what we don’t have,” Baker said. “There are so many changes taking place in education whether it’s technology or just the use of facilities that we just want the people to be aware of what’s happening and what we’re talking about in Carthage 2020 and just get more information out to the public.

“Anyone, any community member can come. We sent it out to our staff last time but we really want all community members, not just those who participated in Carthage 2020, but all and everyone.”

In other business, Board member Justin Baucom announced that Carthage High School Senior Michaela Joines had been chosen as the district’s representative to compete for a Belcher Scholarship, offered by the Missouri School Boards Association.

Joines was chosen from six finalists and will move on to compete with other district winners for the nomination from the MSBA’s Region 9.

The regional winner will win a $750 scholarship and compete with 16 other seniors for the statewide Belcher Scholarship, worth $1,500.

The statewide winner last year was Carthage’s Andrea Westhoff.