A parking lot expansion is in the works at Montana City School, showing—yet again—that the district is growing.
While the school’s current parking lot sits empty during most of the school day, it congests easily during parent drop-off and pick-up, Superintendent Tony Kloker told The Monitor. Updating the parking area will create a safer environment for kids and facilitate a better traffic flow. “When it’s congested and crowded, it’s not as safe and it doesn’t flow as nicely. So that’s what we’re trying to fix,” he said.
The school will use building reserve funds to add approximately 50 spaces to the parking lot. These additional spots will give teachers a designated parking area, clearing up spaces for parents to use in the morning and the afternoon. The school is currently waiting to receive bids before construction can begin.
The new parking lot will occupy the grassy area west of (above) the school’s track and connect to the existing parking lot.
Plans for the parking update were part of the Montana City School’s 2013 building expansion; however, the school didn’t have the funds necessary to complete the project at that time, Kloker explained.
With nearly 500 students enrolled at Montana City School, the school has undergone a series of expansions to accommodate the growing student body. The first Montana City School, a one-room stone structure, opened in 1916. The school’s first expansion included adding bathrooms, followed by another classroom.
In the ’70s, the school added a multipurpose room and half of a gym. The school added onto the multipurpose room and finished the second half of the gym during a separate expansion project in the late 1970s. The following decade included a corridor expansion that housed a cafeteria, a woodworking space and several classrooms. By 1992, 252 students had enrolled at Montana City School, according to Kloker.
By 2000, Montana City School was ready for another update and added two floors of classrooms. A year later, the school added another gym to the facility. At that point, 329 students attended the school.
The school’s latest expansion project, which cost $5.75 million and finished construction in 2013, houses the middle school classrooms, a new front entrance and a music room. The school hopes to pay off this expansion before implementing other growth options, Kloker said. Montana City School will pay off the 2013 expansion in 2033.
The school anticipates 460 students to enroll in the district for the 2022–23 school year. If the community continues to experience rapid growth, Kloker said, a planning committee would need to evaluate viable options for handling additional students.
Kloker emphasized that the district isn’t against growth. Like the school’s learning model, growth should come by design not by chance, Kloker said.
