PORT ANGELES — Parents and district employees urged Port Angeles School Board members to consider the toll closing schools would take on special education students and the unique culture of the schools during a hearing Tuesday.
Some asked for the board to wait a few more months before making a decision.
About 30 people attended the meetings.
About half were district employees, according to Tina Smith-O’Hara, communications specialist for the district.
To offset dwindling enrollment, the district needs to cut expenses by at least $900,000 by the 2008-09 school year.
Projections say enrollment will bottom out at 3,711 in the 2010-11 school year.
That means there will be about 400 fewer students over the next five years, which translates $1.96 million less in state and federal funding.
A school district task force choose to close Fairview Elementary School, move sixth graders to elementary schools and consolidate seventh and eight graders at Stevens Middle School, using Roosevelt Middle School as an elementary school.
The changes will take place next year.
Most comments from audience members were critical of the plan, others pointed out positives, and one woman, a veteran special education teacher, grew emotional describing how developmentally disabled students struggle with change.
“I feel like I’ve been here before,” said Marty Peterson, a special education teacher at Franklin who formerly taught at the now shuttered Monroe Elementary, which was closed in June 2004.
“I’m in the trenches, I see how it affects kids.”
