District’s schools no longer overcrowded
By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor
When the new Fox Hills Elementary School opens on Sept. 8, it will be the first time in the past 10 years that the McKenzie County Public School District No. 1 has not had to deal with overcrowded buildings and classrooms.
As Watford City’s schools have seen enrollment swell from 582 to over 1,800 students in the past 10 years, the school district has been scrambling to remodel its existing buildings and build new schools to accommodate the growth. And during the process, the district has been forced to utilize portable classrooms and to shuffle entire grades to other buildings.
But those days of overcrowded classrooms and portable classrooms are now a thing of the past with the opening of the district’s second elementary school.
“The opening of the Fox Hills Elementary School is huge for our school district,” states Steve Holen, district superintendent. “It was a key piece in our long-range plan to meet our growing enrollment.”
In addition to alleviating the overcrowding of students in the existing elementary school, the addition of the Fox Hills Elementary School will allow the district to finally be able to configure their other buildings correctly.
“We will finally have elementary schools for our kindergarten through fifth grade classes,” states Holen. “Our middle school will be just for sixth through eighth grade students and our high school will be for freshman through senior classes.”