Changes greet kids at Continental School

Attendance at Continental School is up only slightly this year but many children headed back to school on Wednesday to larger class sizes.

Jim Nelson, superintendent of the one-school district, said there are 540 students enrolled in the k-8 school, an increase of about 20 since March. He said that number could drop because some students may have withdrawn or moved away without notifying the school.

As a result of the increase, and the loss of several teachers to layoffs, students and teachers will have to deal with larger class sizes. Nelson said the district tries to keep all classes at 20 students or under. The average size for kindergarten through third grade classes is about 20 students, he said, and the largest class at the middle school has 29 students.

“We’ve tried to maintain a lower class size, but financially, we just can’t afford to do this,” Nelson said. “We’re trying our best to do more with less funding.”

Nelson says the district has redistributed funds to get the most out of its 2009-10 budget, which at $4.2 million is only slightly higher than last year. He said this has allowed the district to hire a business manager who he said has already secured several grants for the school. He declined to give specifics until the grants were finalized. The school also hired its first full-time principal, Sharon Ickes.

“I think that, deep down, parents really understand that we have to adjust to the lack of funding from the state,” Nelson said. “At first they may blame the school, but hopefully they realize that our hands are tied. It’s the legislators up in Phoenix not supporting education.”

Early release

The district will also be facing a major schedule change with early release on Wednesdays, which will see classes end at 1 p.m.

Nelson says this will provide time for staff development and allows teachers to hold meetings and develop curriculum when students are off campus. It also helps parents who have children enrolled in Sahuarita schools, which also have early release on Wednesdays.

In order to maintain the legal requirement for hours in school, classes now begin 20 minutes earlier, at 8 a.m., with a slightly later 3:06 p.m. release time.

Because some working parents were concerned about the change, the district has coordinated with Pima Community College in Green Valley to develop a low-cost enrichment program for grades k-8, which is academically based and ties into Continental’s curriculum, according to Nelson. The program is offered Wednesdays from 1 p.m. until about 5 p.m., and the district will bus students enrolled in the program up to the college.

Nelson said more than 20 students were enrolled in the program as of Thursday.

Another change at Continental: a breakfast program designed to encourage children to give priority to what many consider to be the most important meal of the day.

The program, for students at the elementary school in grades preschool-5, will set aside time at the beginning of class for students to sit down and eat a meal in the cafeteria. Meals include scrambled eggs, cereal, muffins and breakfast pizzas.

While Continental has offered breakfast for students for years, students had to buy and eat the food before class started, and few took advantage of it, Nelson said.

jrichardson@gvnews.com | 547-9726