By KRISTI ALBERTSON

The Daily Inter Lake

On paper, Somers Middle School's 34,000-plus square feet is more than adequate for its student body. With fewer than 200 students, the building appears to offer sufficient room for students and staff.

In reality, however, classrooms are crowded. There is room for one more student in the average sixth- and seventh-grade classroom and room for two in the average eighth-grade class.

"This building was not built for these class sizes," Superintendent Teri Wing said.

A low student-to-teacher ratio always has been valued by rural schools such as Somers, she said, which is why classrooms weren't built larger in the first place. But the valley's tremendous growth is making it difficult to maintain those small class sizes.

With increased enrollment in the lower elementary grades, those rooms will only get more crowded. Rapid development within the boundaries of the Somers-Lakeside School District has resulted in a 15 percent enrollment increase during the past 10 years.

It's an issue that isn't likely to be resolved soon; with a minimum of 2,500 new single-family houses slated for development in the Somers area - as many as half of which may have school-aged children, Wing said - the district could double within the next decade.

This year alone, the district added 65 students for a total of about 600, she said, putting the schools at 101 percent capacity.

"That really set us on our heels," she said. "This year was huge."

District officials, school board trustees and community members are trying to address the issue now, before their schools run out of room entirely. Lakeside Elementary is nearing capacity in its 10-year-old building.

"They thought they were building for the future," Wing said.

Currently, every classroom is filled. Traditionally, the school has had two classes for every grade, but next year, they anticipate as many as five kindergarten classes, she said.

But the middle school is still the district's most pressing concern. With average class sizes of 23, 21 and 20 students in sixth- through eighth-grades, respectively, the school's small classrooms are reaching maximum capacity.

"This is an inefficient building that isn't planned for good flow and usability," architect Paul Bishop told the Somers facilities planning committee at its biweekly meeting Tuesday night.

Bishop runs a consulting business, Building Solutions, based in Polson. The district has hired him to guide the facilities planning process.

Somers' options are limited, as the district has a $5 million bonding limit. The district is still paying the bond taxpayers approved to build the elementary school; that debt will be paid in 2011, Wing said.

Two developers have offered impact aid amounting to about $500,000. If developers, who are essentially creating the enrollment challenge, are part of the solution, taxpayers may be more willing to pass the bond, Wing said.

The district plans to run the bond in November. At least 40 percent voter turnout is required; if the turnout is less or if the bond fails, the district will try again in November 2008, a presidential election year.

"There's a pretty good history of bonds passing in Flathead County," Bishop said. "[The county superintendent's office] said as long as you can demonstrate a need - which I think is obvious here."

If the bond passes this year, the earliest construction would be completed is fall 2010, Wing said.

If, however, the district simply expands and improves the existing building, construction possibly could finish earlier. Building a new facility is unlikely; Bishop estimates tearing down the existing facility and constructing a new building the same size would cost more than $9 million.

Improving and adding on to the existing facility is probably the most feasible option, Bishop said. Somers Middle School sits on 12.7 acres, about 9 of which are suitable for building. The remaining acreage is swampy land that wouldn't support a building but could be used for a track and athletic fields.

Until the district finds a solution, the schools have no choice but to make do with what they have, Wing said.

"We'll just have to have crowded classrooms," she said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.