BillLindau

Star-Biscoe Elem. crowding problems

Star-Biscoe Elementary
Second-smallest public school way over capacity
From The Post, Nov. 1, 2005
By Bill Lindau
Donna Kennedy couldn’t have spelled it out any more plainly when she said, “We have no free space anywhere.”
She’s talking about the room for students at Star-Biscoe Elementary School, where she is principal.
Of the nine public schools in Montgomery County, Star-Biscoe is “bursting at the seams” with students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
Her school, located inside the southern Star town limits, is the second smallest school in the county, with a capacity for 444 children in its permanent facilities.
But it’s also the most overcrowded, with an enrollment of 564 students listed in the spring of 2005.
The current enrollment figures aren’t that high, at 544 at the beginning of the fall 2005 term, but it’s still 100 more students than the school was built for. The spring enrollment showed a population at 120 beyond capacity. Its neighbors at Candor Elementary School ran a distant second, at 85 over capacity as of the spring 2005. Star-Biscoe experienced an increase to 564 from 490, from 2004 to 2005. A report on the facility problems at Candor Elementary appeared in one of late September’s editions.
An assessment of all the county schools’ facilities was released before the most recent enrollments were tallied. Kennedy looked over these statistics, compiled by SFL&A Architects, P.A. (“Successfully Fusing Life & Architecture”) along with a population study by Independent Opinion Research & Communications Inc., a demographics firm based in Wrightsville Beach. Both studies indicated that the population of the eastern half of Montgomery County is growing tremendously, especially in its population of Hispanics and of affluent people from the big cities, attracted by the apparent rural tranquility of Montgomery County. With that increased population comes more children. Those children enroll in schools that were constructed long before the beginning of this population spurt.
Susan K. Bullock, president of IOR&C Inc., offered some birth-rate projections for Star-Biscoe Kindergarten. In 2003 it was 43 percent whites, 21 percent for Hispanics and 12 percent for African-Americans; in 2005, the known rate is 50 percent for whites, 4 percent for African-Americans and 35 percent for Hispanics. The projected birth rates are 106 percent in 2007, 119 percent in 2008, 135 percent in 2009 and 154 percent in 154. The projected birth rate for 2010 includes an 86 percent rate for Hispanics.
These projections for the years 2006 through 2010 are based on existing students and projected birth rates in the respective ethnic communities, Bullock said.
“If the birth patters holds, as has been the case over the past several years, the Star-Biscoe Elementary school will look as follows: 2006 enrollment 527; 2007 enrollment 577; 2008 enrollment 583; 2009 enrollment 637; and in 2010 enrollment 704,” the study reads.
The study further projects a population of 1,117 students in 2013 at Star-Biscoe, “at which time this area will need two schools to meet the growing population without taking account for any overcrowding at this point in 2005,” the study says.
The assessment by SFL&A Architects includes a number of observations for each school, including Star-Biscoe.
“It appears to be sadly accurate,” Kennedy said last week after reading the assessment. She says while this term’s enrollment figures may be less than Spring 2005, she adds that the population usually increases during the academic year.
In each classroom, “we have as many as 23 to 24 children in them and that’s difficult for individual attention,” Kennedy says.
The school has grown in its kindergarten classes, Kennedy says, with a Spring 2005 enrollment of 22 students per class in four kindergarten classes in the permanent facilities. This fall, the school has added two mobile units, giving it a total of eight. One of them is being used for kindergarten.
“This is the first time we’ve had five kindergarten units,” Kennedy said.
“We’ve had to close off our stage area and use it for reading groups and a little teacher work area,” Kennedy says.
The first grade has four teaching stations, but according to the SFL&A study, one of these classrooms is not large enough to support a full class.
Lunch period would be a mess without different cycles of 30 minutes apiece. The entire lunch period runs from 10:40 a.m. to 1:20 p.m.
“We can work through lunch because we start so early and finish so late,” Kennedy said. “If we had a large lunchroom we could do it all at once.”
“Star-Biscoe Elementary has simply outgrown itself,” Kennedy says.
“The statistics show that at minimum, if the conservative estimate of 10 percent population growth annually is sustained in the Latino population in the Candor, Star, Biscoe areas and the continued rapid girth rate of 25 percent increase per year continues, you will need to plan immediately for two new elementary schools to keep pace with what you now have, regardless of other requirements for class reduction,” Bullock states.
Both the Wrightsville Beach group and SFL&A presented their findings at a September meeting with the Montgomery County Schools administration, the Board of Education and the County Commissioners.
Kennedy expressed faith in the administration and the county commissioners that they will do what they can to alleviate the schools’ progress.
“The school board has been very supportive, coming out here,” Kennedy says. “I think the school board’s on top of this….I‘m thankful for the administration for providing us with that fifth kindergarten.“
“I’m in favor of anything that would (increase) the maximum capacity,” she added. “I’d like to see K-to-2 or 3-to-5,” she added, referring to possibly splitting the elementary schools into three grades apiece.
Here are some other observations by SFL&A Architects in their facilities assessment of Star-Biscoe Elementary School:
* Additional classroom space is definitely needed
* Of the six mobile units at the school as of Spring 2005, four that house students do not have toilets. The two pre-kindergarten units are located between the two entry drives and parking at the front of the school
* Some reading groups are in partitioned areas within other functions such as the cafeteria, gymnasium and media center. The reading groups should bet between 10 and 15 students, and some are up to 24 students, according to the study
* Administration offices need additional space. There is a workstation in the office lobby and the workroom is on the stage at the cafeteria
* The art and music building has old radiators in its classrooms
* The area for EC pullout/resource is small; there is no private testing area; and
* Additional parking is needed.

posted by Bill Lindau @ 8:08 PM