The Eudora school district is exploring using vacated classrooms in a school now used mainly for district offices as a way to free up classrooms at Eudora Elementary School.

Superintendent Steve Splichal said the Eudora school board is considering moving the students in the Eudora Elementary School preschool program to West Elementary next school year. The $45 million 2007 bond referendum that provided the $27 million to build Eudora Elementary School also provided funds to convert classrooms at West Elementary for preschool and kindergarten use. Those classrooms were used for that purpose from the fall of 2009 until state budget cuts in 2010 prompted the district to move preschool and kindergarten programs to Eudora Elementary School. In addition to housing the district’s administrative offices, West also contains offices for the Southeast Kansas Education Service Center.

“We have a good facility at West,” Splichal said. “It is something the board is taking a look at. The facility has been well cared for. With the space available, it makes sense to use it.”

The district’s preschool program has an enrollment of about 70 students in its morning and afternoon classes, Splichal said. Its relocation to West would free up four classrooms, he said.

With an enrollment of 880 students, Eudora Elementary, which is home to all the district’s preschool through fifth-grade students, is one of the largest elementary schools in the state, Splichal said. The district’s largest grade-level enrollments are at the elementary level, he said.

An enrollment assessment the district contracted last year indicated Eudora would continue to see slow and steady growth under current conditions. Anything that would add more activity in the community, such as new housing or the development of the Nottingham property, would require an update of the enrollment analysis, Splichal said.

Nottingham Elementary was the home of the district’s preschool, kindergarten, first- and second-grade classes before the opening of Eudora Elementary School. The district sold the vacant school and surrounding property last year to the city of Eudora, which is currently exploring its redevelopment with CBC Real Estate Group into a mixed-use retail/residential center.

West could provide an additional safety valve against enrollment growth beyond the move under consideration, Splichal said. However, he pointed out that Eudora Elementary was designed so that a sixth pod, or group of classrooms, could be added to its existing five pods.

“We have the space for a sixth pod, and the utilities are all in the ground,” he said. “There will be a time when the board and the community will have a conversation on if it make sense to build a sixth pod. We’re not ready to start that conversation and probably won’t be for a couple of years, but it’s always there as we continue to look at enrollment projections and class sizes.”