Voters in Williams County will likely have an opportunity to decide whether to add two new elementary schools to Williston Basin School District #7.
It's no secret that WBSD7 has classroom overcrowding problems at most of its schools throughout the district.
The question is: Are Williams County residents prepared to build new schools at taxpayers' expense?
"An elementary school, at this juncture, could be built [for] maybe $38 million, $39 million," WBSD7 Superintendent Dr. Richard Faidley said. "We would need two of those. However, we have money in our building fund. Currently, we have about $20 million in that fund."
These are strictly infrastructure costs, meaning a bond issuance is not required to pay for staffing, which comes from the district's general fund, according to Faidley.
"As our student enrollment increases, so does our funding," he said.
However, without more classrooms, it's difficult to add teachers. The result is overcrowding, disgruntled parents, unhappy students and staffing challenges.
"We currently have approximately 260 seniors at the high school who will graduate," Faidley said, noting Williston High School has 1,275 students enrolled, which is over capacity. "Our incoming kindergarten class is anticipated to be 510-plus. So, as those cohorts transition from grade to grade they're bigger, which creates space issues."
From Faidley's perspective, public support for building new schools boils down to whether Williston residents want to move forward and improve the community or fall behind and risk seeing property values decline.
"If you look at what the study showed," Faidley said, referring to a 2022 WBSD7 Long-term Facilities Planning Report, "we're going to continue to grow ... That's why the board is looking at the bonding of two new elementary schools."
Classroom overcrowding is occurring throughout all schools in the district — including at WHS. However, Faidley said it's "premature" to discuss building a new high school in Williams County.
"With the high school," he said, "we're currently building new additional space for career and technical education and alternative ed. From a cost perspective, it would be less expensive to expand the [existing] high school."
Building two new elementary schools will require voter approval of a bond issue on an upcoming ballot.
"If the community says yes to the bond, it will take 24 months from start to finish with construction to be able to make those facilities ready for students," Faidley said, noting that 1,200 students could be moved or added to the new elementary schools.
If a recent community survey is any indication of how the public views funding new schools, the results are good news for WBSD7. The 2023 survey, which generated 836 responses from parents whose children attend the district's schools, asked respondents to prioritize their main concerns. Class size was second, behind safe and supportive schools, followed by age and condition of schools.
More importantly, for Faidley and proponents of expanding schools, 550 survey respondents said they would support "a bond referendum for two new elementary schools to eliminate overcrowding."
The current plan calls for changing Missouri Ridge from a combined elementary and middle school to strictly K-4 or K-5, and adding a new school to Missouri Ridge for elementary students.
Building a new school for Missouri Ridge would "free up space in all the other elementary schools," Faidley said. "If we balance all of our schools out we'll be able to take our classrooms down to 20 to 22."
Currently, classroom sizes across the district are at 28 to 30.
"If we do nothing for next year, our kindergarten and first grade will be at 32 [students per classroom]," Faidley estimated. "We do have capacity issues at the high school as well, but our first priority is at the elementary schools because of the extremely large class sizes."
"The problem we have is currently our K-4 buildings," Faidley continued. "We have no space to add any students in those classrooms. Currently, Missouri Ridge is a 3-8 school. So that school would transition to a K-4 or a K-5 school, depending on which model I choose to recommend to the Board moving forward."
The models Faidley referred to offer three scenarios with various configurations of how the district's elementary and middle schools will accommodate different grade levels and students.
The model that's currently garnering the most support is Scenario 3, according to Faidley. It calls for making Bakken Elementary a sixth, seventh and eighth grade school, with each grade level occupying a different space on the school's existing three levels.
Williston Middle School would locate fifth grade on the second and third floors. ASB Innovation Academy would see an increase of 300 students across sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
Under Scenario 3, Missouri Ridge would be a K-5 school and Garden Valley would accommodate K-4.
"Every forum that I've held [Scenario 3] has more support from people in attendance," Faidley said, indicating it is the model he's most likely to recommend.
"We try to meet the needs of as many people as we can," he said about the importance of gathering data on the pros and cons of each scenario. "I'm not here to dictate and mandate what happens."
The purpose of the bond ballot is to give Williams County voters a chance to decide whether to raise taxes to expand schools.
From Faidley's vantage point, WBSD7 classrooms are currently overcrowded. This places burdens on teachers and students. Therefore, the time for debating whether to build new schools or increase classroom sizes is practically moot, he said.
"I think debate's always good," he said, "but it's more a question of where to put the new schools rather than whether you need them."
If voters reject a bond issuance to build two new elementary schools in WBSD7, Faidley said it will become harder to recruit new teachers to the area. Ultimately, this could hinder Williston's ability to grow and prosper.
"If we don't have reasonable class sizes it's going to affect teacher recruitment and teacher retention," he said. "As superintendent, I want to do my part from a leadership perspective to establish class-size caps, to establish grade reconfiguration to make the job of the classroom teacher a positive experience."
Faidley said his job is to manage the school district and make recommendations to the public. Ultimately, it's up to the community to decide whether to build new schools to accommodate an expanding population.
If the schools are overcrowded, he said, young families will think twice about relocating to Williston in the future.
"The bond's going to help everyone," Faidley said. "All of these things are connected. The quality of your schools attracts businesses. It attracts professionals — blue-collar and white-collar workers."
