Small Elementary too small

South Portland officials consider options for overcrowding at the school.

In South Portland, Small isn’t just the name of an elementary school, it’s also a state of being.

Although rebuilt just eight years ago, the Dora L. Small Elementary School, on Thompson Street, has already proven inadequate for neighborhood needs. Built to house 260 to 280 students, the K-5 school is eyeing an anticipated fall enrollment of 323.

“We are bursting at the seams,” said Superintendent Suzanne Godin. “They’re stuffed right in.”

After reviewing a series of options, including busing some students to other elementary schools in the city, the school board will vote at its next meeting whether to buy a portable building to handle the overflow.

Godin said that although all elementary schools in the district have been rebuilt in recent years, population shifts already have wreaked havoc with advance planning. While Small school needs at least three new classrooms to maintain class sizes of less than 25 students, some schools, such as Waldo Skillin Elementary, could soon have more rooms than it needs.

“We have significant issues with demographics, and where our buildings are,” said Godin. “Basically, populations are growing fastest at the ends of the city and there’s no way to shift the lines for pockets of students, because the bubbles are not in every grade level, every year.”

At Small School, next year’s bubbles are expected in kindergarten (projected to grow from 55 to 63 students) and Grade 4 (47 to 54).

At a school board workshop meeting Monday, five options were unveiled to deal with the overcrowding. Although Godin dutifully detailed each one, all but one has already fallen by the wayside, she said.

That option, to buy a 52-by-28-foot modular building, big enough to house two classes, is the one that will be put to a vote at the June 13 school board meeting. If approved, a bid will be solicited for the building. Schiavi Leasing Corporation, of Oxford, has reportedly provided a “ballpark” estimate of $65,000 for a used “portable.”

Russ Brigham, director of buildings and grounds for the school district, said it should cost less than $10,000 for site preparation and construction of a covered walkway from the portable to the school’s rear entrance. The lights and electric heat, he said, would cost “about $100 a month.”

Godin said money for the purchase and site preparation would be taken from funds left over in a reserve fund for elementary school construction.

Asked about furniture, Godin said enough can be scrounged from throughout the district to outfit one classroom, but items will have to be purchased for the other. That cost, she said, will be calculated in time for the June 13 meeting.

About 30 parents attended the workshop session, and all who spoke were unanimous in support of the portable classroom, which will be placed in an alcove behind the school, necessitating the relocation of one small tree. None seemed to like the alternative concept of busing students to other, underutilized schools in the city.

“We chose to live in South Portland instead of Cape Elizabeth because we like the idea of community schools,” said Alison Jacoby. “We want to be in an area where our children can walk to school.”

Busing options included moving 20 kindergarteners to Kaler Elementary, on South Kelsey Street, shipping 10 fourth-graders to either Kaler or Brown Elementary, on Highland Avenue, or transporting the entire fifth grade to Mahoney Middle School.

Parents liked none of those options, while Godin similarly rejected collapsing the 54-student fourth grade into two classes of 27 students each, or converting the Small School art room into classroom space. Those possibilities, she said, were simply “not viable.”

However, if a two-room modular building is brought on site, a third classroom will still be required. Godin said the present plan is to convert a smaller space used for academically gifted students into a literacy-intensive room for a small group of 14 first-graders.

Some parents question if that room would be adequate, while others debated which class should be relegated to the portable building – Godin said it definitely will not be grades K-1.

School officials believe they can buy a portable building for less than a 48-month lease, based on Schiavi’s estimate, and there are other benefits to ownership, as well.

Godin noted that projections say the enrollment bubble should blow through Small Elementary by 2014, by which time only 16 classrooms will be needed, instead of the 18 desired for the fall.

Also at that time, planned renovations at the high school will be well under way, necessitating the need for additional portable classrooms there. Board of Education Chairman Ralph Baxter Jr. suggested that the timing would be right to move any portable unit purchased for Small Elementary to the high school.

Of course, anything can happen between now and then, as Godin stressed several times during the workshop session.

“I’m giving you the best projections on enrollment we have,” she said, “but I guarantee you, what we are looking today will not look the same on Oct. 1.”