Declining enrollment claims another Marquette elementary school
By Megan Maas, 15, with contributions by Danielle Jahnke, 11 and GlenEllen Lehmberg, 10.

Bordered by shaded streets and in the center of a quiet neighborhood, it would seem that Vandenboom Elementary School in Marquette Township is the ideal neighborhood school. With light traffic and many students living within walking distance, it could be on any street corner in small town America.

So, when the Marquette school board made the recent decision to stop using the Vandenboom building for K-3 education after the coming school year, many community members were disappointed. Residents of the Marquette Area Public Schools, in a number of neighborhoods, have been getting this type of news for years.

Vandenboom is the latest addition to the list of closed elementary schools in the MAPS district. Parkview, Whitman, and Silver Creek schools were all closed within the last ten years and all for the same reasons: declining enrollment and budget problems.

Brooke Swajenen, eleven, of Marquette is a former Vandenboom student. She is upset that after this year, her old elementary school will no longer be used for K-3 education.

“ I went there for four years and it’s a good school. They had a lot of activities and they would take care of you if you were sick or something,” she said.

Faith Martin, eleven, of Marquette, another former Vandenboom student, also feels that Vandenboom should be remain an elementary school.

“ I had a wonderful time there and my teacher was awesome and I think they should keep it as an elementary school,” she said.

The school was built as a Marquette Township school in 1950 and underwent major renovations in 1956, 1967 and in 1993. In 1983 the school was annexed by the Marquette Area Public Schools.

Before making a final decision in June board members listened to comments from community members and reviewed feedback from a survey sent out by Marquette Township. Township Supervisor, Ray Adamini, who is strongly opposed to ending elementary education at Vandenboom, says they sent out over 1,700 mailings to residents in the community about the school’s future. Of the 1,700 sent out they received 87 responses and passed them along to the school board members to review.

“ I spent an hour or two and read them all, all 87 of them,” trustee Scott Brogan said. “Of the 87, I think eight of those were in favor of what the administration is recommending. When we look at the concerns that are raised in those comments, I think there are some real and valid concerns. Over and over we’re taking about loss of neighborhood, loss of community.”

Before the six-to-one vote was cast (with Brogan casting the lone dissenting vote), board members were presented with several alternatives. One option that received the most discussion was keeping Vandenboom open and expanding it to a K-5 building. Another related option was expanding not only Vandenboom to a K-5 school but all the K-3 elementary schools in the district and designating the Graveraet Intermediate School, which currently houses fourth and fifth graders, for other uses.

Brogan suggested that Graveraet could be used to house central administrative staff, for community education programs, alternative education and special education programs.

“ I think that would be an immediate benefit to taking fourth and fifth grades out of Graveraet,” Brogan said. “I think we can move community education into Graveraet, not only for the offices, but also in the evening we have an excellent facility for community education classes. I think we could relocate our central administration staff into Graveraet. It would be more centrally located for the district as a whole.”

Community member Dan Adamini spoke in favor of that plan at the June 23rd School Board meeting.

“ But getting back the elementary school kindergarten through 5th grade, that would certainly, from the numbers I’ve seen, be a workable option.”

MAPS Superintendent Jon Hartwig said that he does not support that plan because he feels the Graveraet Intermediate School is a very effective building.

“ The thing about Graveraet is that it’s a building full of kids. All of the space is being utilized,” he said. It has one principal and a good-sized staff and it’s a very active facility. So in terms of the decision the board made a number of years ago (to turn Graveraet into an intermediate school), in terms of student achievement and effective, efficient use of the building, both things are happening.”

After considering every option presented, Trustee Mark Smith said that the evidence of a continuing decline in enrollment makes ending elementary education at Vandenboom the best option for the district.

“ The graph of the student population for MAPS for the past 12 years just keeps going down,” he said. “I have heard the township is growing, property values are growing, but what isn’t growing is the number of K-12 students. It’s regrettable, but I’m going to have to favor this recommendation.”

Hartwig agreed that the decision was difficult, but pointed out that the issue of declining enrollment isn’t a problem that is limited to Marquette County.

“ Our projections, which have been very reasonable and accurate for many years, do not shine brightly on our region. This is a regional issue, regional in terms of the Midwest,” he said. “The size of school districts is getting smaller. We know that our county is the same size or even slightly more in terms of population, but it’s a different composition.”

Even though the district has already closed three, now four, elementary schools to help combat this problem, Hartwig, not wanting to go into great detail, gave short replies as to whether more closures were possible in the future.

“ It’s very possible,” he said.

So what other schools could be closed?

“ It’s hard to tell,” Hartwig added.

After deciding to stop using the Vandenboom building for K-3 education, the question now is what the building will be used for. The district plans to keep the building (unlike the last three closed school buildings) in case of an unexpected increase in student population.

“ One of the uses would be as a tutoring center for high school aged students across the county,” Hartwig said. “The second would be a place where high school students that had failed courses could take similar courses in the evening or during the summer to make up for that credit. The third would be a center for home school students.”

While the decision to close Vandenboom was ultimately the best option in the eyes of the school board, many parents and community members still feel that a sense of community is being lost. Ray Adamini is in that group.

“ One of the first things people ask when they’re moving to a community is, ‘Where’s the school?.’” He added, “So I think that we lose that, and we lose that sense of community because a school is part of the community, just as a fire department is part of the community.”

“ I feel that the school is a big community center, a big draw to the township,” said Vandenboom parent Melissa Andrews. “They (her children) will be happy going to another school, but I’m sure they’ll miss their friends and their teachers and the closeness there.”

The point was echoed by Andrew’s daughter Alexis, 7, who will return this fall to be one of the last elementary classes at Vandenboom.

“ I like how they’re great teachers and great classes and lots of fun,” she said. “I don’t want my school to shut down.”