The Olathe Public Schools district will consider a measure next month to close Westview Elementary after the 2025-26 school year and repurpose the building for an alternative education program for kindergarten through eighth grade.
The district’s boundary study group made the recommendation to repurpose the school, which serves kindergarten through fifth grade, as its enrollment declined after 2019 and flatlined around 150 students.
The group has met quarterly for more than 20 years, evaluating the district’s enrollment, building usage, future development, space concerns and more.
“Given the current funding and given our enrollment, we’re looking at how can we better utilize our current resources?” said Jim McMullen, deputy superintendent of organizational operations, at the June 5 Board of Education meeting. “And so, by repurposing Westview, we’re able to provide a site for [a] K-8 alt ed program.”
If Westview closed, then it would be the first elementary school to do so in the district since 1972, when it closed Stuck Elementary School, according to the district website.
For decades, Olathe’s growing enrollment encouraged the opening of new schools. However, enrollment started declining after its peak in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic, which struck in 2020, played a role in the decline, but so have housing costs, low birth rates and aging populations, McMullen said.
No other schools are at risk of closing, McMullen added.
The school is not closing in order to make room for the K-8 alternative education program — the two are just on a similar timetable, said Board Member Claire Reagan.
“The creation of the K-8 alternative education program would be a new support in addition to the district’s existing 9-12 alternative education and PK-12 special education supports,” said Becky Grubaugh, executive director of communications and community relations, in an email Tuesday.
“Currently, there are no alternative education programs for K-8 students,” she added. “The supports and services offered at this new program would be the first program of its kind in the region, designed to address a critical gap for K-8 students. The intention is not to move existing services to this building. Rather, this program would be an addition of new supports.”
Over the past few weeks prior to the meeting, the district met with the school’s staff and community about the potential change — addressing the timeline and boundary change process, soliciting feedback and answering questions.
McMullen said the district’s goal is to move as many Westview students together to the same school.
“Hopefully, we will have some options that includes all those students,” McMullen said. “So we’ll, again, have multiple boundary options to look at.”
What the K-8 alternative education program could look like
Liz Harrison, executive director for elementary education, said she’s heard for years about the district’s need for additional resources for students with behavioral, social and emotional needs.
“It’s clearly a priority for our community,” Harrison said. “As a result, we’re developing, or working to develop, a K-8 alternative program that aims to address these behavioral challenges proactively while easing the pressure felt across our schools by our students, staff and our families.”
The proposed alternative education program is in the early stages, and district staff told the Post they don’t have a current estimate of how many students will enroll in it.
While the program is still being built, Harrison said many of the supports will not be new to the district, but they’ll be more frequent and intense for students in the program. For example:
- Positive behavior intervention and supports, or PBIS, which is a school-wide framework that teaches and reinforces positive behaviors
- Skillstreaming, an approach through modeling, role-playing, performance feedback and generalization to teach prosocial skills to students
- Second Step, which helps teach students social-emotional skills
“We’re planning for a staffing model to offer comprehensive support going beyond what may be currently available at a student’s home school,” Harrison said. “The program may include things like increased access to mental health professionals and possible partnerships with community mental health supports to offer more advanced services.”
If the board approves the measure July 10 at 14160 Black Bob Road, Olathe, to close the school, next steps would include:
- Boundary meetings — a mix of open-house style meetings and formal presentations — in September, allowing parents and staff to give feedback on potential changes
- Board action on proposed boundary changes in November
- Human resources addressing new placements with staff, relocating them to new schools, in November
- School tours, meetings and transition activities for students and parents at schools involved with the boundary change
While the schools involved with the boundary change have not been decided, the surrounding elementary schools are: Rolling Ridge, Fairview, Central and Ridgeview elementary schools.
“Collectively, we have a job to oversee our superintendent, and we have a job to set policy, but we are also voted on by members of the community to be good stewards of their taxpayer dollars,” said Julie Steele, vice president of the board. “That’s really important, too. And that’s one thing that makes the decision next month really hard for us.”
Are you an Olathe family needing free lunch this summer? Read here about how school districts are feeding kids over the break.
