Four of Kalispell’s five elementary schools are at least 60 years old, and almost every site is filled to capacity as enrollment keeps growing. Kalispell Middle School, with nearly 1,100 students, is the lone middle school in town and the largest in Montana. With nearly 3,000 students between the two sites, Flathead High School continues to age around its original 112-year-old footprint and even the state’s newest high school, Glacier, is approaching the 10-year-old mark.
Faced with rising enrollment and aging facilities, Kalispell school district administrators are making plans to address sizeable building needs in the near future. Superintendent Mark Flatau is inviting the community to participate in a planning effort that begins this month with a meeting on June 24. The meeting starts at 6 p.m. inside the Linderman Education Center on Third Avenue East.
The school district is organizing a group of administrators, staff and community members that will tackle the challenges over the next year.
Atop the list of ideas and priorities is the development of a new school site on the south end of Kalispell. In November, voters approved the district’s acquisition of a 25-acre section of land that was swapped for an adjacent 25-acre property on Airport Road. The district acquired the land using funds that accrued in its savings account.
Flatau said the planning group would help the district decide whether a new elementary school should be built or a new site that could hold kindergarten through eighth grade.
“What will we build there? That’s what we need to talk about,” Flatau said.
The development of a new school would require voter approval for a bond, similar to the funding mechanism used to build Glacier High School 10 years ago.
The list of issues doesn’t end with a new school site, though. The district has a growing list of facility needs and deferred maintenance, Flatau said. Engineers identified an estimated $8 million in deferred maintenance at just Flathead, he said.
The elementary sites are especially aged. Hedges was built in 1929 and had nearly 400 students this year. Russell was built in 1940 and had over 270 students. Elrod opened in 1951 and had over 300 students this year. Peterson was built in 1955 and had over 430 students this year. The city’s newest school, Edgerton, was built in 1987 and had over 600 students this year. The last bond measure approved in the district was for $3.35 million in 2012 to add eight new classrooms onto Edgerton and Peterson.
In the last 10 years, the city’s elementary district has increased by 541 students, according to school data. There were nearly 2,100 students in kindergarten through fifth grade in Kalispell, 71 more than last year, according to the latest school enrollment data.
“There is a lot of things we have to look at. The important part is we want community feedback and involvement and direction from the very beginning,” Flatau said.