MUKILTEO – Odyssey Elementary School has seen enrollment increase by more than 150 students over the last four years.
This fall, the campus in the southeast corner of the Mukilteo School District was adding 10 to 12 students a month, the equivalent of a new classroom every 60 days.
Thirteen classes reached “overload” – exceeding contractual agreements between teachers and the district of 26 students in first and second grades and 27 in higher grades.
“We’re just growing by leaps and bounds,” said Principal Cheryl Boze.
The school is getting some relief.
District leaders decided to send would-be Odyssey students who move into four new housing developments under construction to Picnic Point Elementary School, which has more room.
The decision should prevent Odyssey from becoming “overwhelmingly crowded,” the principal said.
At the same time, the district’s elementary-age program for 88 academically-gifted students will be relocated from Fairmount Elementary to Mukilteo Elementary next fall.
Both changes confront a shift in the Mukilteo district where most east-side schools are growing while enrollment is stagnant or shrinking on the west side.
Three east-side schools – Fairmount, 670 students; Horizon, 747 students; and Odyssey, 709 students – hit record enrollments in October.
Next fall, Horizon will send four kindergarten classrooms, roughly 85 students, to Challenger Elementary, another east-side school, which isn’t growing as fast as other schools on the east side. Still, Challenger will move two special education preschool classes to Endeavour on the west side.
Much of the growth can be attributed to sewer lines replacing septic tanks in the once-rural Lake Stickney area. The change triggered a housing boom.
At the same time, more and more households on the west side are becoming “empty nests” where children have grown up and graduated, said Andy Muntz, a school district spokesman.
The decision to move students and programs next fall is “a short-term solution,” Muntz said.
The school district is expected to propose a bond measure in 2008 that would likely include building a new elementary school in the high-growth east side.
The district has land near Lake Stickney that once included an elementary school.
A bond measure failed last year that included the elementary school proposal. It received a 56.6 percent “yes” vote , falling short of the state’s 60 percent supermajority requirement.
“When the bond didn’t go through, that’s when we really started to get worried,” Boze said.
Enrollment projections show that more than 350 additional elementary students will enter Mukilteo schools in the next five years. Most are expected in schools that are already overcrowded.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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