FLORENCE — In a move to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards, the Florence-Penrose School District is pursuing a plan that would shut down Fremont Middle School in fall 2019 and divide middle school students among Florence High School and local elementary schools, sparking mixed feelings among parents.
Under the new plan, seventh- and eighth-grade students would join their peers at Florence High School and sixth-grade students would remain at either Penrose or Fremont elementary schools for the 2019-2020 school year.
Nearly a century old, FMS has received few upgrades since the 1970s, and in 2004, when an elevator was installed in the main building. Features of the school’s bathrooms are not ADA accessible and neither is the school’s front entrance nor a seventh-grade science classroom. FMS’s annex building does not have an elevator.
“The fact of the matter is this building just presents significant safety and ADA compliance issues,” said Brenda Krage, Florence-Penrose superintendent, who is overseeing the transition in her first year as district leader.
Michelle Hyatt, a parent of four students who are either attending or have attended schools in the district, said the middle school building is not conducive to students’ needs, particularly those with mobile disabilities.
“It is not helpful for those students that have to get up and down floors with one elevator and steep stairs,” she said.
It is not only unhelpful but discriminatory.
“If a student cannot access a classroom because there is not proper door clearance, discrimination exists. Essentially, the student with a disability is being told ‘you don’t belong here,'” said Dana Barton, director of the of the Rocky Mountain ADA Center, an organization that seeks to educate the public about ADA.
Hyatt said she is also hoping the district’s plan will bring changes to the middle school’s academic atmosphere and foster communication between the elementary, middle and high schools. Dissatisfied with the academic and social climate at FMS, she pulled her now eighth-grade student out of the school two years ago and sent her to online program AIM Global instead.
“This transition will allow for sixth-graders to remain in a setting that will continue to nurture and help them grow, while the seventh- and eighth-graders move on to the high school,” Hyatt said.
But some parents in the area have pointed out that mixing younger middle school students with ninth- through 12th-graders may cause issues since maturity levels are different.
Krage said there is no cause for alarm, pointing to research that suggests older grades can serve as role models for younger students. Plans for keeping younger and older students separate at FHS are still in the works, but Krage said other schools in Colorado with seventh through 12th programs have done it.
Lyons Middle Senior High School in Lyons combines middle and high school grades, as does The Classical Academy’s College Pathway’s program in Colorado Springs.
Despite parent complaints, lack of funding and safety concerns have prevented the district, Krage said, from pursuing alternative options to keep the school open, like renovation or taking students with disabilities to a different school.
The renovation is too expensive, Krage said, and this year the district had to transport students with disabilities to the much-newer FHS for part of the day to better serve their needs.
But that is not a cost-effective solution, either. Krage would not say how many students had to be transported but said it was finally enough for the district to consider the middle school closure, which the school board had mentioned in previous years.
While public schools are required to give students with disabilities access to the same services, programs and activities, older schools are not necessarily required to renovate for ADA compliance. But failure to create adequate spaces could be detrimental to a disabled student’s ability to learn.
Even if a district finds a makeshift solution, as such as what Florence did, social isolation is still a risk.
“A critical piece of education is social – and schools that are not ADA compliant do not afford students with disabilities the same opportunities as others,” Barton said.
Using this year’s enrollment numbers, Krage said the district’s plan will also give the FHS a total of around 570 students for seventh through 12th grade. The building’s compacity is 750, and enrollment at the high school has been steadily dropping for the last five years.
Krage is still working to finalize the plan’s details, including Hyatt’s wish for academic changes. The district plans to sell the building but is open to exploring other options.
“My commitment to you will be to provide frequent and consistent communication,” Krage said.
The next school board meeting is at 6 p.m. Dec. 10 at 403 W. Fifth St. in Florence. Regular updates will be posted on the district’s website.