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Sixth-graders at Skaith Elementary School Logan Baker, Felecia Ranson and Samuel Watt work during art class Friday afternoon. The number of students could increase more than normal next year if a proposed 400-unit apartment complex is built.

A proposed 400-unit apartment complex could mean one or many of the following for Skaith Elementary School: trailers, bigger class sizes, revoked student transfers, new school boundaries and at least six new classrooms.

All are possibilities, Skaith principal Dr. Matthew Martz and St. Joseph School District assistant to the superintendent Steve Huff said Friday.

Thursday evening, Deer Park-area residents protested developer Tim Rowland’s proposed development for southeast St. Joseph, citing concerns with Skaith overcrowding.

The City Council was scheduled to hold a public hearing and vote on rezoning the property and details of the development Monday evening. However, councilwoman Barbara LaBass said Friday that she plans to make a motion Monday to postpone the public hearing and vote. The council will decide whether to postpone or move forward.

A group plans to picket on the steps of City Hall before Monday’s meeting. Local political activist Virginia Weigum said the group opposes the neighborhood and school impacts.

If the complex is built, the exact impact on Skaith depends on a few unknowns: new students’ ages and arrival dates and whether school district voters approve a $43 million construction proposal that includes new Skaith classrooms in addition to a new northeast elementary school and a new school for Neely and Hall elementaries.

“The apartment proposal has put the residents out here in a lot of turmoil. They’re in limbo,” Dr. Martz said. “They don’t know what’s going to happen to their neighborhood school.”

Four Skaith classrooms are included in the construction proposal. If this apartment complex goes up, that new classroom number will increase to at least six, Mr. Huff said. That means the construction proposal’s price tag could increase.

If voters pass both the construction proposal and a proposal to renew a 63-cent tax levy in April 2009, an unknown number of new Skaith students could arrive at least a year before the new classrooms.

So no matter what voters decide, Skaith could have to find ways to fit new students without additional classrooms.

The district program that serves students with autism could move from a Skaith classroom to another building if Skaith needs the space, Dr. Martz said.

Trailers could house classrooms on Skaith property, he said.

Student transfer numbers could drop. Dr. Martz said about 70 of Skaith’s 420 students are transfers. (Transfer students don’t live within the boundary lines of the school they attend.) If student-to-teacher ratios rise to undesirable numbers, Dr. Martz will look at revoking transfer permission. He’s already denied some new transfers.

Combination classes — a class with both third- and fourth-graders, for example — could form, he said.

New school boundary lines are possible.

The district is forming a committee that will look at redrawing school boundaries. The committee could propose new boundaries to the Board of Education in at least one year, regardless of whether the construction proposal passes. New Skaith boundaries could move students currently inside its boundaries to another school.

Skaith class sizes range from the low 20s in the lower grades to the high 20s in the upper grades.

Brian Shindorf, the district’s assistant director of elementary education, said the largest class in the district is probably a sixth-grade class with about 31 students. The district doesn’t plan to allow the number of students in a class to grow past the low 30s, he said.

Dr. Martz said that although Skaith families might have to deal with students getting less individual attention, the school will do what it can to minimize the impact.

“We’re still going to provide a quality education for them,” Dr. Martz said. “It just might be more of a challenge to do so.”

The proposed 402 market-rate apartments would seek to attract employees of Heartland Regional Medical Center, Missouri Western State University and the new Eastowne Business Park. The proposed site is southeast of the Highway 36 and Interstate 29 junction. Skaith sits south of the proposed site.

Nancy Hull can be reached at nancyhull@npgco.com.