Expanding Pueblo:
Pueblo Elementary will soon become crane’s second K-8 school
In February, the Crane Elementary School District governing board approved the expansion of Pueblo Elementary to include 7th and 8th grades in a manner similar to Gowan Science Academy, the district’s only K-8 model school.
“Over 30 current 6th grade parents have expressed interest in the model and desire to attend Pueblo in the 2023-24 school year as 7th grade students,” Board President Marcos Moore said. “Therefore the district administration recommends the expansion of Pueblo Elementary School to serve grades preschool through 8th grade with the intent of only providing 7th grade services for the 2023-24 school year and 8th grade in the subsequent school year.”
Discussion followed, with questions of whether there would be athletics and if classrooms would be capped. For the former, Pueblo Principal Bobbie Henry stated that sports wouldn’t be offered yet but might in subsequent years depending on student numbers, coaching staff and school growth. As for the latter, they plan on capping open enrollment.
While some discussion continued on the topic of curricula and classrooms, the board was initially split over how soon the time to vote on the topic appeared to come.
“I am so excited; I love the K-8 model,” board member Sarah Claridge said. “The way this has been done is very different than how we did it in previous years … (with Gowan,) we had so many presentations about what was the plan, where the space was. Like we were presented that information at board meetings so that the public could see it as well. We were told where the classrooms were going to be, where the teachers that – kind of the layout of the schedule, all of that stuff was presented at this.
“This isn’t on you, Mrs. Henry, at all. We haven’t gotten any of that. So I love the K-8 model. I want this to happen. I’m a little concerned that we haven’t done all of the planning that we did when we were expanding Gowan.”
Addressing the concern of why Gowan underwent more time with presentations, Superintendent Laurie Doering explained that the school’s expansion was publicly discussed in-depth because it was the district’s
first time expanding from K-6 to K-8.
“There were lots of questions so we did the big presentation,” Doering said. “That’s why I didn’t guide Ms. Henry to do so with this. However, she is available tonight. She knows that the board may have questions. So what I would encourage you to do if there’s anything you’re apprehensive about, I encourage you to ask those questions now in making that decision. She’s spent a lot of time planning this, she’s engaged her staff a lot with it as well. Tomorrow’s a very big date because of open enrollment, February 15. So that’s why ideally it would be wonderful if the board could pass it tonight so people could be informed.”
“The only concern that I have is that this is a big decision, right?” Moore commented. “And if the board decides to expand it … I’m on board, let’s move forward. Let’s get past the decisions that we made and move. But if this were a private entity in the agricultural industry and I was the consultant sitting right there and they asked me what I think, I would say, ‘You should probably table this, go through the details.’ Because what you don’t want is in a year being in a situation like ‘We didn’t think of that’ and you as a board member, you probably would have had a solution set would you have heard it.
“And so it’s nothing against the principals. I think the principals are going to be great at this. I think our staff is going to be phenomenal. I think everything’s that. It’s just not the way you go about smart business practices. That’s all I have to say. So I would recommend you postpone it but I am one vote and so I will be here at the pleasure of the board. If you guys want to move forward with it, we’ll move forward with it.”
Board members Audrey Garcia and Jim Colby replied that their experiences had been very different, having already been part of one-on-one meetings on the subject and having been made aware of it in advance.
“This isn’t my first time hearing it,” Garcia said. “Mrs. Doering reached out and let us know. I know I heard it during our first meeting. I set up an opportunity, I went and spoke with Mrs. Henry. She’s got a fabulous plan. So this wasn’t – like this didn’t take me by surprise. They knew it was coming so for me, there’s not a disconnect.”
“I certainly trust Ms. Doering, Dr. Hoffman,” Colby later stated. “I didn’t feel like this was a surprise after we discussed at our meeting and I’m relatively sure that – I’m trying to think of any questions or something that, the only question I had was about kids if they want to play sports. Because other than that, I trust this has been looked at and checked it and planned on and ready to go and if tomorrow – I expected it to be on the agenda for action.”
Claridge confirmed that knowledge that the item was coming was made known during one-on-one meetings but expressed the concern that there wasn’t enough public notification of it.
“We’re not just here for us, we’re here for the public as well,” she said. “Everything we did with Gowan when we did that expansion was; I mean, we had several meetings as a board being presented different parts of the information and we haven’t had any of that here so that for me was a bit of like, I was expecting that because we’ve done it in the past.”
When board member Regina Twomey asked if Claridge had been part of the public Zoom presentations on the topic, she replied that “they did separate ones, I don’t know if that makes sense,” referring to the existence of presentations beyond Zoom.
Ultimately, Claridge, Colby, Garcia and Twomey voted in favor of the expansion while Moore abstained. The motion carried.