School Dist. 5 Pondering Idea of New Middle School

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

The idea came to Anderson School Dist. 5 Board Vice Chairman Tommy Price in church, though it concerned a different kind of congregation - the more than a thousand students attending Robert Anderson Middle School.

District 5 for some time has been considering how to reduce that number. Returning Southwood Academy of the Arts to use as a traditional middle school would create another place for students, but it would also displace an arts program that had developed its own following.

Price began to wonder whether the district could solve both problems without treating one group of students as the price of helping another.

“The arts are doing really well,” he recalled thinking. “Why not just build on it?”

His proposal is to construct a stand-alone arts school on district-owned land beside the district office, near Westside High School, and return Southwood to its earlier role as a traditional middle school. The new campus could begin as an arts middle school, with room to consider high school grades later.

It is an idea, not an approved construction project. District leaders are seeking cost information and public feedback, and other options remain under consideration. But Price believes it may offer a way to address Robert Anderson’s size while giving arts education a more durable home.

“We’ve just been kind of kicking tires,” he said, “trying to come up with ideas that suit students and the taxpayers.”

Robert Anderson’s enrollment is approximately 1,059, and while it is not technically a school physically running out of classroom space it does raise the question of whether that many adolescents can be educated together in one middle school.

Price said a middle school of roughly 600-750 students is a more desirable scale, although district discussions have also considered schools elsewhere that operate successfully with more than a thousand.

The present arrangement grew from an earlier effort to save money.

Lakeside Middle School had an aging campus designed around outdoor movement between classes. As the district considered a location for the Anderson Institute of Technology along the bypass, Lakeside’s declining enrollment helped make consolidation with Robert Anderson seem practical. Combining the schools avoided the cost of building yet another middle school.

“It worked OK,” said Price. “Hindsight’s 20/20. I don’t think it was the best idea, but for the time it worked.”

Now the board is revisiting the consequences. Price said public-school enrollment across the district has declined somewhat, making the case for a large new conventional campus harder to justify solely on capacity.

“Your students are your primary mission,” he said. “But you’re responsible to taxpayers.”

That tension has shaped the discussion: how to make a school smaller without undertaking a project the district cannot comfortably sustain, and how to use buildings it already owns without losing programs families value.

Southwood presents both a possibility and a complication.

Price describes it as a distinctive school that has done well. He also said some students enter in sixth grade and then return to their neighborhood schools for seventh or eighth grade. The district needs to understand those decisions, he suggested, as it considers the next version of its arts offerings.

A new arts campus could provide a more centrally located option for students associated with both T.L. Hanna and Westside. It might also create a complete pathway for students who want specialized arts instruction beyond middle school.

For now, the grade configuration remains unsettled. Price said the district could study a middle-and-high-school arts model, or design an initial building that leaves room for a high school addition later on property the school district already owns.

He said there is enough room for the possibility of a future expansion.

He also envisions an auditorium that Westside could use for events. Southwood would retain its existing Bozeman Auditorium if it became a traditional middle school — an asset Price sees as useful to students regardless of the school’s designation.

The discussion follows the recent public response to the uncertain future of Project Challenge Playhouse, where students described what theater had given them: friendships, confidence and a place to belong. For Price, those accounts reinforced the need to think beyond the most familiar school activities.

“Every kid’s not a football player, baseball player,” he said. “They like to do other things.”

He rejects the notion that the arts serve only a small, separate category of people.

“You sit down and watch TV every night,” he said. “You listen to music. We’re all into the arts, whether we realize it or not.”

Price would like a future arts school to bear Anderson native Chadwick Boseman’s name. He cited the actor’s experience in District 5 as an example of what early opportunities can make possible. No school name has been adopted; it is Price’s personal preference.

“I’m just impressed with what that young man accomplished in his life,” he said.

The proposed site is property the district acquired beside its central office, between that building and the Westside stadium area. Price said the district is obtaining prices for removing structures it owns there.

Using land already owned by the district would eliminate another purchase and place the project beside existing school facilities. Price also sees opportunities to address more than one need through the site’s design, including additional parking that could serve the new campus and Westside football events.

The central question is what should be built there.

A conventional Westside-area middle school is one option. A new arts school paired with the conversion of Southwood is another. Other configurations presented to the public included adding to Glenview and reconsidering McCants, although he does not expect that approach to advance.

The alternatives are being offered as possibilities rather than commitments.

“It doesn’t mean every idea we come up with was a good one,” Price said. “Sometimes you come up with something that may work.”

Price estimates that a stand-alone arts school might cost $35 million to $45 million, substantially less than the roughly $75 million figure being considered for a conventional middle school, an idea that rests in part on that the arts campus would not need the same complement of athletic facilities.

Those figures are preliminary. The district is still obtaining prices, and no final project scope or construction budget has been approved.

Price said accumulated capital funds could allow the district to undertake a project of that scale without a bond referendum and without exhausting its reserves. But he cautioned that the money must also cover the demands of existing campuses.

Heating and cooling systems, roofs and other building infrastructure can consume large sums without producing a new classroom or a ceremonial opening.

“Maintenance is astronomical on these buildings,” he said.

The district’s school capital sales tax has helped pay for those needs, Price said, and expects a renewal effort in 2028 for continuing the tax would reduce the need to seek other tax increases for major renovations and replacements.

That is his assessment of the district’s financial choices, not a guarantee about future tax rates. The board must still decide which projects to pursue, what they will cost and how to preserve enough money for needs that cannot be scheduled neatly in advance.

Price said district leaders had discussed several possibilities in executive session before presenting them publicly. He encouraged meetings devoted to laying out the alternatives, in part because earlier attempts to solicit parent feedback had drawn limited attendance.

Rather than ask families another broad question about what should happen, he wanted them to see the actual choices the board was weighing.

“Let’s put all our eggs out to them,” he said, describing a request he made to Superintendent Brenda Kelley. “These are things we’re looking at.”

The next step is to hear what parents, students and other residents think, refine the cost estimates and consider which arrangement addresses Robert Anderson’s enrollment while strengthening opportunities elsewhere.

Price also expressed confidence in Robert Anderson’s principal, Michael Noble, while acknowledging that administrative turnover in the district office has not helped the school.

For guidance, Price returns to something he learned from former Anderson School Dist. 5 Board Member Ann Hewitt, whom he describes as a mentor: when a district builds, it should remember whom the building is for.

“We’re doing what’s best for our students,” he said, “and giving them the best chance we can to succeed in life, no matter what they’re going to do.”

For now, there is no approved new school, no settled grade span and no construction timetable. There is land beside the district office, a middle school with more than a thousand students, an arts program whose future is part of the discussion, and a proposal to rearrange those pieces into something that might serve them all better.