Intern

Last year, five-year-old Madi Sebulsky attended Summit High School - sort of. Madi, along with approximately 35 other four, five and six-year-olds went to kindergarten at the high school because their school, High Lakes Elementary, didn't have enough classroom space to house all the newly arrived kindergartners. In an effort to keep class sizes from ballooning, High Lakes set up kindergarten classes at the nearby high school.

Getting creative is something that Oregonian educators, and students, have gotten accustomed to given the state's notoriously poor record of funding schools. But the results have been mixed. And one of the biggest, and largely unmet, challenges remains shrinking class sizes at the elementary level - something that researchers say is key to helping kids succeed later in life.
For the past decade, Oregon has been known for having class sizes well
above the national average. The Chalkboard Project, an independent
non-partisan organization created by five of Oregon's leading
foundations, shows Oregon's class sizes as being fourth highest in the
country. The Bend-La Pine School District has addressed this issue by
setting a goal of 18 students per teacher in grades K-3, but like other
districts throughout the state, local schools are finding it difficult
to maintain these target ratios, especially in tough economic times
when schools typically face cutbacks because of Oregon's centralized
funding system.
And right now there is a storm growing.