Fort Smith School Board approves plan to close Trusty Elementary

The Fort Smith Public Schools Board of Education approved a plan at its Dec. 18 regular meeting to move students from Trusty Elementary School when the school closes at the end of this school year.

Trusty was slated to close by the district in 2018 with the Vision 2023 assessment of the district’s schools. At that time, the assessment showed issues around Trusty Elementary, especially in connection to the school’s classroom sizes, Deputy Superintendent Marty Mahan told the board Monday. Only one classroom in the school meets state requirements for size of a classroom. Though the district could remodel, and make the size of the classrooms larger, that would not fix the problem, Mahan said.

“You could make the 12 classrooms larger, but if you make smaller classrooms larger, you end up eliminating classrooms,” he said.

Also because the school does not meet state qualifications for pre-kindergarten, the district is not able to offer pre-k at the site, Mahan said. With the issues surrounding the school, the decision was made in 2018, that the school would close at the end of the 2023-2024 school year and that the district would look at expanding Morrison Elementary School.

Kindergarten through first-grade students have already moved from Trusty to Morrison Elementary School, Mahan said. The only students remaining at the school are second through fifth grade. Current fifth-grade students will go on to their respective middle schools next school year.

The district has met with faculty, staff, parents and residents in the area many times this year, presenting options about relocating students at the closing. Administration presented three possible plans to the school board Monday, but recommended going with a plan that strictly sticks with the existing middle school zone. In the plan, everything north of the middle school dividing line that divides between Kimmons and Darby middle school districts, moves to Morrison Elementary School, everything south moves to Howard Elementary School.

“This is the easiest and the cleanest,” Mahan said.

The enrollment impact is expected to move Howard Elementary School from 255 students to 274 and Morrison from 417 students to 528, he said.

“These numbers are from Oct. 15. The numbers, they are a little different now. They are a little lower,” Mahan said.

Many of those who took part in discussions with administration were concerned with the plan because some students might have to cross all four lanes of Midland Avenue walking to and from school. One of the district’s plans had some students moving to Tilles Elementary to avoid the need for this cross, but doing so would make Howard’s enrollment even lower, which isn’t ideal, Mahan said.

“If you look at the northeastern side of Howard, you see it gets really close to Tilles, and there is Midland Avenue and four lanes of traffic that walkers from (the new Howard zone) who live close to Tilles would have to walk across to get to Howard,” Mahan said. “We do have a bus route. They can walk to the bus route and ride to Howard. But it is still a valid concern.”

Ultimately, the lack of desire to make Howard enrollment smaller led administration to prefer Plan 1, the one that follows middle school lines, as the best option. Mahan said there are crosswalks in place for crossing Midland Avenue and the bus route provides an option for those not wanting children to cross the four-lane highway. Students can walk to the bus’ stop and ride to Howard, he said.

The school board voted unanimously to go with the administration’s recommendation.

“We can’t officially close a school without a plan for where those students will go. The sooner we can do that, the sooner parents can start planning,” School Board President Dalton Person said.