More room needed to add full-day kindergarten
4J’s French immersion elementary school will move down the hill this summer, but it won’t travel far.
Charlemagne French Immersion Elementary School has been located for many years in the former Fox Hollow Elementary School building in the southeast Eugene hills. This summer the school will move to the former Parker Elementary School building, a mile away at 39th & Kincaid.
The relocation is due to a need for more space. Kindergarten will become a full-time program in 4J schools this fall, requiring more classroom space for kindergarten. While most elementary schools have enough space to expand the kindergarten program, some schools are more constrained. One school site does not have adequate building capacity to implement full-day kindergarten: Charlemagne’s current location. The Fox Hollow building is the smallest among all currently operating 4J elementary schools.
The Parker building is significantly larger. It can easily accommodate the Charlemagne program with full-day kindergarten and has additional space to potentially house other compatible district programs or organizations at the site.
District staff met this winter with Charlemagne staff and parents to discuss possible solutions, then presented stakeholder input and recommended options to the school board. The two viable options were to move the program to the Parker site or remain at the current Fox Hollow site and remodel, add additional modular classrooms, or build a permanent addition. The board voted on January 21 to move the program to the Parker site.
Charlemagne will open at its new location in fall 2015.
