Public gets chance to speak on Hilltop closure

PHOTO BY clare jensen

KELSEY DEMARRE, HAILEY SCOTT AND KYLEE MILLER (LEFT TO RIGHT) LEAVE HILLTOP ELEMENTARY, WHICH MAY BE CLOSED BY THE END OF THIS SCHOOL YEAR. Sixth-graders Demarre and Miller will move next door to Edgemont Junior High, while fourth-grader Scott will finish out her elementary career at nearby Northwood Elementary if Hilltop shuts down. A public hearing on the matter will be held at 6 p.m. June 10 at Edgemont.

At the end of this school year, Hilltop Elementary School may close its doors, not to re-open in September.

Due to decreasing enrollment and large budget deficit, Puyallup School District began looking at shutting down Hilltop, one of three elementary schools in Edgewood.

Members of the public will be able to speak on the issue at a public hearing at 6 p.m. June 10.

District staff has prepared a study of the topic, which can be found online, and board officials are looking to the public for pertinent factors they may have missed.

“(The board) wants to find out why it would really be…substantively wrong to close the school,” said School Board President Greg Heath. “There’s a lot of compelling evidence” in support of closing Hilltop.

Closing a small, community school like Hilltop, which has been open since 1957, brings up a lot of emotions for alumni, students, parents and staff.

Heath noted nostalgia and emotional ties are not enough reason to keep the school operational.

“Give us some real, material reasons. Bring the facts, that’s what we really want to hear.”

Edgewood resident, Hilltop alumna and mother of a current Hilltop student Cyndi Howells noted that poor communication between the district and the Edgewood community has not left enough time to fully study the issue and establish intelligent arguments in favor of the school.

“We didn’t have enough time to study the issue… two-and-a-half months is not enough time to intelligently research the facts and figures of the situation. It’s hard to tell whether or not this is a good idea,” she said.

Howells said she still plans on attending the public hearing, but that she’s not confident that it will have any impact on the board’s decision.

“It’s a done deal in their minds.”

Formal notice was first sent out to area parents March 20.

A board meeting on the topic was held shortly after, on March 23, with the full study discussed on April 13. Following the public hearing, the board will likely make its decision at its July 13 board meeting.

At that meeting, the board will have had more than 90 days to consider the study prepared by staff.

So far, staff and students at Hilltop have been moving forward as if the school will not re-open, for planning purposes.

Hilltop’s 211 students have been divvied up between Northwood

and Mountain View, bringing their enrollment numbers from 265 to 381 and 294 to 369, respectively.

Both schools have the capacity to accommodate those numbers, and portables will not be added to either campus in the near future, noted Rudy Fyles, executive director of facilities for the district.

Heath noted that larger student bodies at the two schools would benefit all the students as well.

“We feel with (a larger) student count at the two schools, they will move up to more of our model size, which allows for better programming…a better dynamic for our students.”

Hilltop Elementary staff members would be realigned throughout the school district, said Lorraine Wilson, assistant superintendent of human resources.

The district has discussed the option of closing Hilltop for more than a decade, and demolishing the building and expanding Northwood Elementary is included in the district’s capital facilities long-range plans.

Consolidating three schools into two would save the district nearly $350,000 annually and is included in $15.7 million worth of savings proposed in the 2009-10 draft budget, according to the district’s study.

The public hearing on the possible closure of Hilltop Elementary will be held at 6 p.m. June 10 at Edgemont Junior High, 2300 110th Ave. E. in Edgewood.

The board will likely make its decision on the topic at 9 a.m., July 13 at 302 Second St. S.E., in Puyallup.

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