For the past couple of months, families and community members have been extremely concerned with Superintendent Pontrelli’s “B.O.L.D.” proposal to close three schools: Marine, Withrow and Oak Park Elementary schools. After sifting through all of the facts and information that has been brought forth by the board and community members,  it is in the district’s best interest to close the three schools.

Pontrelli and her team presented at the school board meeting on Dec. 17. They suggested closing three schools to adjust to the growing population in the south and the stagnant population in the north. After this was proposed, the community began working together to sway the votes of the school board members.

Over the past 10 years, our district has several different leaders who had different visions and goals for the district. Superintendent Pontrelli is planning for the long term to ensure sustainability for the district.

“We went back and we looked building by building and we wanted to make sure when we did this that we weren’t crowding our classrooms and that we didn’t have too many kids so we used an average instead of a maximum capacity,” Pontrelli said.

Pontrelli and her team believe they have come up with a plan that will allow for equitable and equal resources for all students in the district. The B.O.L.D. plan allows for all students to have the resources they need to be successful.

“We really just want to continue to make Stillwater the place that you want to be. For not only our elementary students, but our babies that we have and all the way through to students who are 21,” Pontrelli said. “It will help with everything from food service to transportation to technology. It is just really an efficiency of scale and that sounds and of like it’s all about the numbers, but it really isn’t. It’s about trying to give kids better services and better options.”

If the B.O.L.D. plan is approved by the school board, the Gifted and Talented Program (GATE) could expand. It would allow for the GATE program to move to Stillwater Junior High School and assist middle school level students with services the program has to offer as well as the current elementary level students.

“We have heard from teachers that they would like to try to expand options and move earlier to third grade and then have some support for our middle level students. There used to be an elementary school over at Stillwater Junior High. It was called Forest Hills and it was around the auditorium. We are considering having it over there because it is a separate entry and that kind of thing if we would want it ,but it would also give our middle school kids the option to be in the GATE program,” Pontrelli said.

Currently, most parents with students involved in the Gifted and Talented Program have to drive their children to Oak Park Elementary every day. This is due to the fact that students go to Oak Park for the GATE program from all over the district. Moving the GATE program to Stillwater Junior High allows for improved possibilities for all students in the district.

Pontrelli continued, “The other thing that it might allow us to do is provide transportation because a lot of our families have had to transport their kids. Everyone from the north end goes to Stillwater Junior High already so we could probably do something for our Oak Land students so they could take their bus into Oak Land and then they could take a shuttle and go up.”

Another major problem the B.O.L.D. proposal would fix is the inequity of specialized services at the elementary level. Currently, special service teachers are having to move to different school throughout the day/week. This is not ideal for students who need to see a specialist more often than the currently allotted time.

“For our teachers who are giving specialized services – art, music, speech, special education, student advocate, etc. – they wouldn’t have as many schools to go to so they could spend more time in one place,” Pontrelli said.

Ideal class sizes have been talked about quite a bit since the B.O.L.D. proposal was introduced. Some schools in the district have classes with over 30 students while other schools have classes with less than 20. This is inequitable to the district and is not an efficient way for the district to continue.

“By closing three of our smallest schools there would be more classrooms at each grade level in a building, allowing us to spread students out across those classrooms,” Executive Director of Administrative Services, Cathy Moen said in an interview with the Stillwater Gazette. “This allows us to more consistently fall within the current staffing ratios, and limits the number of classrooms below or above our ideal class sizes.”

One thing about all schools in the district that Pontrelli admires is the level and sense of community that each school has. The way families and staff come together to see their children and students succeed is something special. Marine, Withrow and Oak Park Elementary schools are not the only schools in the district with a close, tight-knit community.

Pontrelli said, “The thing that I think is interesting about Stillwater is that it doesn’t matter what school I go to, that school, their principal, their staff, their families, and their kids think they have the tightest, closest community ever.”

The decision to recommend closing Marine, Withrow and Oak Park Elementary schools was not a decision that was taken lightly. Pontrelli and her team worked a countless number of hours to ensure this was the best option. As a community we should come together to support our Superintendent’s plan as well as the school board during this time. Closing schools is never an ideal option but it is the best way for our district to move forward.

In an interview with the Stillwater Gazette, Pontrelli said, “Nobody likes to do this, and this has not been a fun process for the team and it is not a fun process for the board to consider, and we all know that it is not fun for communities to consider, but we wouldn’t be recommending it if we didn’t think it would be giving us the long-term financial stability that we need.”