The Lake Road school is expanding for the third year in a row to include sixth grade classes as well.
Over the last few years, the Poplar Bluff R-I school district has been taking steps to expand the campus in order to better benefit the community. Since the beginning, the plan has been to include sixth grade students at the elementary campus.
The students involved in this transition do have the option to move to Poplar Bluff Middle School. However, Dr. Scott Dill, superintendent, said during the school board meeting Thursday night that in the two years prior for fourth and fifth grade students, most have opted to remain at the Lake Road campus.
When the issue was first brought up in 2018 to allow fourth grade students to remain, one of the main reasons was to increase enrollment, which had dropped to 170 compared to the other elementary schools in the district with over 300.
Dill said with the inclusion of sixth grade students remaining at the school, Lake Road will be about on par with the other elementary schools at around 350. Currently, the school has an enrollment of 303 students.
An issue with the move, which Dill said the district has been anticipating, is the limited space at the campus. With the inclusion of sixth grade now, he said a modular classroom will need to be leased.
“The significant cost this year would be that we’re running out of space at this point,” he said.
In his memo to the board, Dill said the decision to lease a modular classroom rather than purchasing one is that the district wants to ensure the expansion is viable before “the permanent acquisition of resources.”
Dill originally said the cost would be about $8,000 per year for the classroom, but upon further research he said that number seems to be a little low and it would actually be closer to $10,000-$12,000.
“If the program proves viable, I think we’ll have the conversation about building something permanent there,” he said.
In order to accomplish adding sixth grade, the district will utilize two “consolidated teaching positions” from the middle school, Dill said in his memo.
Dill said the parent response he’s seen has been positive due to the option and the flexibility.
“From my perspective, the program has been successful up to this point,” he said. “The numbers have held and it is providing options we haven’t had previously.”