Pekin looks at consolidating with Fremont

PACKWOOD ? Pekin Community School District officials were looking into the future when they submitted improvement proposals for funding by Gov. Chet Culver?s proposed $750 million bonding plan.

Pekin?s proposal includes an addition to the high school, with three classrooms, kitchen, commons area, auditorium, an additional gym and other work, which would help ease the potential merger with the neighboring Fremont school district.

Fremont is a small district ? only about 145 to 150 students ? northwest of the Pekin school district, explained Pekin superintendent Roger Macklem.

The school district has ?a very nice elementary building, with about 12 students per teacher,? he continued. The high school students attend classes at the Eddyville/Blakesburg Community School District high school, but the contract between those two districts expires in June.

?We?ve been sharing five teachers with Fremont, and hope to build a bridge and bring the districts together on down the line,? said Macklem.

This year, Pekin?s librarian, counselor, Talented and Gifted teacher and computer technology teacher also worked in Fremont, plus Pekin High School Principal Art Sathoff is the Fremont district superintendent.

Next year, Pekin plans to share two or three teachers with the Cardinal Community School District, Macklem added.

Even though a possible consolidation between Pekin and Fremont is still three or four years away, Macklem hopes if it does occur some parents of children in the northwest part of the Pekin district would send their elementary-aged children to school in Fremont.

?That way, it would put a few more students in their classrooms and a few less in ours,? said Macklem. ?It would help even out class sizes.?

But the possible consolidation is still down the road, and the two districts would have to work out the details, Macklem continued.

For the complete article, see the Tuesday, April 7, 2009, Fairfield Ledger.