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NORTH MANCHESTER - Manchester and Laketon elementary schools will split the kindergarten through sixth-grade classes between the two schools in the 2003-04 school year.
The Manchester school board unanimously adopted the reconfiguration measure Tuesday.
Manchester Elementary School will become a kindergarten to fourth-grade building. Laketon Elementary will take the fifth and sixth grades.
Reconfiguration allows the school corporation to think more creatively, school board vice president Todd Speicher said. That swung his vote toward reconfiguration.
"This is just blue sky," Speicher said about the creative opportunities reconfiguring could afford.
Several in the audience applauded the board's vote. Most people sat quietly.
The grade-level split seemed a natural split, acting superintendent Kim Thurston said.
With an entire grade in a building, teachers can provide a concentrated curriculum for students, he said.
The kindergarten-to-fourth-grade building allows teachers to focus on building literacy skills. The fifth and sixth grades together offers "more intensive lab work and projects" in areas such as science, Thurston said.
The arrangement will help in scheduling grade-wide activities, Manchester Elementary principal Bonnie Ingraham said.
Space availability in the schools played a role in rearrangement, Thurston said.
Thurston said he did not think more buses, bus drivers or doubling bus routes are necessary with reconfiguration. He did suggest a shuttle run for after-school activities.
Both Ingraham and Laketon Elementary principal Denny Craft favored reconfiguration.
The school board members are: president Sally Krouse, vice president Todd Speicher, secretary Brad Perrott, Larry Miller, Thom Frantz, Kent Terrill and Caryle McLaughlin. Acting superintendent is Kim Thurston and school corporation attorney is Al Schlitt.
