Although crowded conditions at Jefferson City's East Elementary School will not be fixed this year, attempts to improve the situation were put into motion this week.
The solution calls for making numerous shifts inside the 76-year-old brick-and-mortar building in order to accommodate the school's Reading Recovery program, which serves the youngest children in the building. Doing so frees up space in the mobile classroom outside the building, creating a new environment for two new class sections: one for fifth grade and another for kindergarten.
But already cramped conditions are likely to get even tighter.
The relocations call for moving the physical education teacher out of his office and into a small, closet-sized space next to the stage. By freeing up that office, the counselor will be able to move in, freeing up that office for half of the Reading Recovery program. The remaining Reading Recovery program will be moved into the teachers' lounge.
Teachers will now eat lunch, grade papers and meet with one another on the school's small stage, which is separated from the gym by a curtain.
The two most-crowded grade levels at the school are the kindergarten and fifth grade. Before these changes were made, the fifth grade had two sections of 29 students each and the kindergarten had three sections of 25, 26 and 26 students.
Twenty-one students is a typical class size across the rest of the Jefferson City School District.
The changes come with trade-offs.
Half of the Reading Recovery program is now situated in part of an L-shaped space in the school that isn't completely walled off from the building's main office. So teachers will likely be teaching over the noise of a large copying machine and chit-chat near a row of mailboxes. (The two areas are separated by office furniture, including a movable bulletin board.)
The final solution was not one of the four pitched to teachers in a memo written by Kathy Foster, the assistant superintendent for elementary education. Those included:
• Hiring another teacher's aide for fifth grade.
• Pulling students out of class and into empty rooms at times when other students are attending physical education, art or music classes.
• Asking the art and music teachers to travel from room to room.
• Or maintaining the status-quo.
Central Office administrators declined to comment on the specific changes. Instead, Amy Berendzen, assistant to the superintendent, responded in a email: "East will use spaces within their building just like every other school in the district has and does."
Delora Scaggs, the school's at-risk educator and parent of a fifth grader in the building, said the office relocations are less than ideal, but they will allow for class sizes to be lower.
Like many of her co-workers, Scaggs meets with children in a windowless closet with a stand-pipe. The room is labeled as "storage" on building blueprints.
She lamented, the school - in spite of a scheduled renovation this summer - seems likely to remain overcrowded. She said the problem is a chronic one the school has faced for years, not an unanticipated bubble.
"We've been overcrowded for a long time," Scaggs said. "Last year, the kindergarten and first-grade classes were overcrowded."
According to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the "desirable standard" for kindergarten class sizes is 17 pupils. For the past five years, East School has exceeded that recommendation in every kindergarten class except one.
The 2010-11 school year was particularly tough for the school, when every single class exceeded the state's "desirable standard." At East School, the district has only been able to meet state's desirable standard about 33 percent of the time in the last five years, although it has stayed within the state's maximum limit.
Scaggs said there is an "unspoken decision" in her school to try to prevent students from having to suffer crowded conditions two years back to back.
This year, the first grade was given three sections and the second grade was given four sections. But because of a scarcity of classrooms, it meant the fifth grade was allocated only two rooms in August.
"That's the trend. We've had two grades overcrowded every year," Scaggs said.
In a special-edition "Key Communicator," the district's online newsletter, the district responded to the East School situation by noting: "The district certainly understands the need for a more permanent solution to help address increased enrollment and subsequent space needs at East and other schools district-wide."
Berendzen said the district provided additional support to the school by creating the at-risk teaching position (filled by Scaggs) and hiring a full-time social worker for the school.
"Both these positions were added with the understanding that space was already at a premium, but extra support was warranted," Berendzen wrote in the Key Communicator memo.
The school is slated for major renovations this summer.
"Professionals will help ensure efficiency in utilizing existing space, as much as possible," Berendzen wrote.
As part of the changes, school administrators have agreed to stop using an electrical closet as a space to teach a visually impaired student in the district. On Aug. 26, the city's Fire Inspection office cited the district for the violation of having a working space too close to electrical equipment.
The inspector commented: "Office needs to be moved out of the mechanical room."
The student, as well as his visual-aid equipment, has been transitioned to a place labeled as "storage."
"The teacher and student have been moved to a different location at the request of the JCFD," facilities department director Bob Weber noted in an email.
It's not clear what has finally been decided about the use of the electrical room. On Thursday, Berendzen said the space was approved for use; by Friday, Weber's memo indicated it was not.
Jason Turner, Jefferson City Fire Department spokesman, said on Friday inspectors will allow the district to use it.
"We've asked them to make sure that space stays clear, and they can occupy the area temporarily," he said.
Other violations noted in August included having a power-strip cord across the doorway to an exterior exit, a lack of emergency power illumination in an upstairs hallway and unsafe conditions in the gymnasium. The inspector recommended the gym's ceiling tiles be replaced.
In recent months, fire inspectors have also agreed to allow the school to increase the occupancy loads for the various rooms. One room had an occupancy load rating of 30 until it was raised to 40 recently. Scaggs said the occupancy allowed in her son's classroom was revised from 30 to 37 people.
Weber said architects calculated the rooms' occupancy loads - using the International Building Code - and submitted the suggestions to the JCFD, which approved them. He wasn't certain how many rooms occupancy loads increased.
"Our concern was just to get them loaded correctly," Weber wrote in an email.
The code requires 20 square feet for each person. So, if a classroom is 660 square feet - the average in the building - it can have 33 people.
Turner noted some of the rooms are likely larger than 660 square feet; others are likely smaller.
"We have worked with East School to make some temporary accommodations until space needs are resolved," Turner said, adding it's commonly done for businesses around the community when they are faced with expensive renovations.
Asked how long "temporary" is, or if the same problems will still be permitted in the fall, Turner replied: "That is a good question.
"We have to see what progress the district has made to remedy these situations," he said.
Asked if the building is safe, Turner said it is.
"Absolutely," he said. "If it wasn't, we would require them to make the changes needed."
In a 2013 analysis by architects, East School earned 110 of 200 points for the building's safety and security. The architects docked the school points for heating units not located away from student-occupied areas, not having fire safety equipment properly located, lacking at least two independent exits from any point in the building, lacking fire-resistant materials in the structure and failing to have a suitable emergency alarm system.
The report also noted the building isn't free of crumbly asbestos and toxic materials.
But Turner said the building was constructed in an era when code enforcement was lax, and comparing East to other schools in the district isn't comparing "apples to apples."
As mother of a fifth-grade girl in a class of 29 students, Lisa Sanning was somewhat satisfied with the solution district leaders finally accepted.
"It's the best we could hope for," Sanning said. "We would've rather had a second trailer."
However, she said Superintendent Brian Mitchell indicated a trailer would not be an option from the time concerns were first raised in August.
Asked why a trailer could not be approved, Berendzen replied: "It's not needed, based on the reorganization and planning that a group of amenable teachers" were willing to do.
"By thinking a little differently, we were able to make better use of the existing mobile classroom, which alleviates the need for a second mobile classroom," she said.
Berendzen said the school's personnel were able to devise the "best, most reasonable" solution to the school's overcrowding problem.
Sanning credited teachers for their willingness to help, but was less enthusiastic about district administrators' responses.
"He (Mitchell) had to hold that line, and he did. And he has all the power," she said. "They could've been a little more generous."