MARQUETTE, MI-- Longer kindergarten days and larger class sizes are the reason Marquette Area Public Schools is realigning its district.
That’s according to interim superintendent Bill Saunders, who says the elementary schools have simply run out of space.
“We’ve since had a change in kindergarten and went from half-day kindergarteners to all day, every day kindergartners, and that took up a number of those elementary classrooms,” he says.
A new K-5 elementary school with 285 students will be housed at the Graveraet building, which will undergo about $160,000 in updates. That will take about 100 students from both Sandy Knoll and Superior Hills schools.
It will also move the alternative high school’s 185 students to the Vandenboom building. That means the YMCA Early Childhood Education program will have to find a new space. Saunders hopes the building can be shared for a year while Y officials search for a new home. But the program will also have to get re-licensed and reaccredited because of the move.
Saunders says the biggest realignment cost will be the yearly $280,000 spent on new Graveraet staff.
