Up to nine schools in Greeley-Evans School District 6 could be combined and reorganized in an attempt to save as much as $2 million in the face of mounting state funding cuts.

District officials are considering a draft plan that would combine most students at Cameron and Jefferson elementary schools into a new, larger elementary school housed at Maplewood Middle School — itself once an elementary school. The vast majority of students at Maplewood Middle School would then be moved to Franklin Middle School.

Franklin and Maplewood are the two smallest middle schools in the district, with each boasting populations roughly half the size of Heath Middle School and two-thirds the size of Brentwood and John Evans middle schools.

In addition, the district is considering combining all five of the alternative schools into one large alternative school, which would be housed at the current Jefferson Elementary School. These alternative schools are Trademark and Trademark West high schools, Colorado High School, the Greeley-Evans Alternative Program and Adelante.

Cameron, which is the district’s oldest school, would remain empty under this draft plan, said Wayne Eads, chief operations officer for the district, though the district could still lease the b uildings. Eads also added that the boundaries for some schools might be slightly altered.

Eads said the consolidation of alternative schools could offer more services for the students, such as a gymnasium, cafeteria and stage for arts performances. The Jefferson Elementary School site’s heating and air conditioning system also was recently renovated, and a wireless system was recently added.

Jefferson also has access to public transportation, and the extra space could mean the district could increase enrollment for alternative classes, Eads said — a benefit as the district is dealing with waiting lists at its alternative schools. The alternative schools in the district feature a combined 19 classrooms, while Jefferson features 26 classrooms.

In moving most Maplewood students to Franklin, Eads said more elective courses might be offered. Moving students to Maplewood would combine two of the smallest elementary schools in the district.

Facilities study
The District 6 Board of Education was presented with the draft plan Monday at its work session and unanimously directed district officials to examine the issue further. Monday’s vote did not finalize the draft plan but rather directed the district to schedule eight public comment meetings on the matter and directed officials to compile a more detailed cost analysis of the draft plan.

The draft plan, though, is the result of the first phase of a three-phase study commissioned by the board of education during the 2008-09 school year as a way to examine how well its facilities are being utilized. The first phase of the study , which was presented Monday and cost about $23,000, examined whether buildings were over-utilized or under-utilized.

The second phase of the project will review and revise the way the district establishes school capacity, while the third will examine facility use on a more long-term basis.

The study was compiled by Klipp, an architecture, planning and interiors firm based in Denver that has worked with other school districts, including St. Vrain Valley School District.

District employees served on the study’s core team, which emphasized that the board would have to make a decision on the school consolidations by March 1 in order to implement the changes in time for the 2010-11 school year.

Superintendent Ranelle Lang acknowledged the timeline for making such changes has been compressed in this case — usually such measures take at least a year to complete — but she said the state budget crisis requires the district to move quickly.

Budget woes
On Monday, district officials were told to expect state funding cuts of 7 percent to 12 percent for fiscal year 2010-11 — cuts that, if as bad as feared, would lead to a reduction in staff levels for the district. Eads said he hopes to accomplish those reductions through attrition, though he cautioned attrition alone may not be enough.

“This is a moving situation as the state revenue forecasts get worse every time we have a forecast … and it just keeps getting worse,” Eads said. “And so, this kind of maybe underlines and accelerates the time frame where we h ave to make these kinds of decisions.”

He also said the district was notified Monday that a $500,000 rescission in state funding could be possible for the current fiscal year.

This is in addition to the $2.54 million in state funding that already has been withheld from the district, pending an economic rebound. Uncertain that this would happen, the district did not include this funding when adopting its 2009-10 budget.

Ultimately, Eads said, continued drops in state revenues projections meant this funding — which would have equaled an additional 1.9 percent in state funding for the current fiscal year — will not be granted.

“I feel like I’ve said it over and over — and I want to shout it — that I don’t think people really understand: We’ve never faced this kind of a situation before; this is new,” Eads said. “People just don’t want to accept that this is going to mean jobs; we are going to lose numbers of employees in this next budget year in order to balance the budget.”