Estacada board previewed plan to reconfigure schools to address rapid enrollment growth

A community committee convened by district staff recommended a reconfiguration of Estacada School District buildings to address continuing enrollment growth, presenting the board with a preferred plan that would take effect in the 2026–27 school year.

The committee’s top recommendation would create K–2 primary schools (with River Mill proposed for K–2), a 3–4 campus at Clackamas River, a 5–6 campus in the current middle school, and move 7–8 graders into a separated wing of the high school while leaving grades 9–12 at the high school. Jennifer Rumer, a district staff member who led the committee, told the board, “We are recommending our No. 1 pick is a K–2 configuration… River Mill being the K–2. Clackamas River being a 3–4 campus. The current middle school would be a 5–6 campus. The seventh and eighth graders would move over to the high school.”

The recommendation grew from three committee meetings involving people from across the community: 24 people signed up and 15 attended regularly, Rumer said. The group evaluated five broad options — keep status quo (more portables), redraw elementary boundaries, reconfigure grades across buildings, reopen/repurpose Eagle Creek, or pursue the full reconfiguration the committee recommended — and narrowed the list by eliminating options that committee members judged unsustainable or that failed to address the middle-school capacity crunch.

Why it matters: district leaders said the current distribution of students and projected growth risk creating inequitable programs across elementary schools and would require repeated, disruptive boundary changes or an increasing number of portables. Superintendent Carpenter said the recommendation buys the district time to manage growth while staff explore longer-term facility solutions.

Board and staff highlighted trade-offs. Some trustees said they worry about the number of transitions students would face under the recommended plan and asked for details about supports for early readers if third grade is separated from K–2 instruction. Rumer replied that the recommendation aligns with the district’s early literacy work and instructional coaching and that interventions would be preserved and targeted: “If they’re not there, we do have the interventions in place that we could support that,” she said.

Operational staff and trustees discussed transportation and scheduling implications. District staff said moving 7–8 graders into the high school wing would require new bell and lunch schedules and separate student entrances, but that transportation can be rerouted without creating systemwide barriers; staff noted the shift would eliminate a transfer bus several families currently rely on. The district also noted the high school building has the most “cushion” for additional students: capacity estimates discussed at the meeting ranged roughly from about 877 up to about 1,000 seats depending on class-size assumptions.

Next steps: the board did not take a formal vote on the recommendation at the April 9 meeting. Several trustees asked for a month to gather questions; the board intends to vote on a formal plan at its next regular meeting. Rumer and district communications staff said they will hold community outreach, including a Facebook Live and town‑hall–style meetings, before the vote to collect and answer questions.

The recommendation is explicitly presented as an interim solution: committee members and staff emphasized it is intended to provide capacity relief in the near term while the district considers longer-term facility changes.

Ending: Board members asked staff to return with more detailed capacity and cushion estimates (classroom counts per building and the number of seats created by the plan) before the vote. Trustees urged community members with specific questions to send them to the superintendent so staff can compile answers before the board’s decision next month.