People want something done with Myhre Elementary School sooner rather than later, and closing it isn't out of the question.

These are some of the opinions voiced by participants at a Bismarck School Board community forum Tuesday at Simle Middle School.

About 120 people attended. After a brief introduction by Superintendent Paul Johnson, people broke into small groups in the north wing of the school. The north wing is the area that will be remodeled beginning this summer.

"I believe it could be fixed, but if that's the cost, I don't think you can outrun it," Myhre parent Vince Sanders said. "It can't be pushed out seven years. It has to get started. It is not a project that is able to wait."

Sanders has two sons who attended Myhre. He said the classroom setup is distracting, similar to hearing someone's radio playing in another room and not being able to shut out the noise.

The school board did an assessment of the school building and site. It would cost $2.5 million to bring the building up to current building code and $1.3 million to make the classrooms enclosed spaces. With fees, it would be about $4 million. A new elementary school would be about $8 million.

If the district closed Myhre and sold the land, the profits could be put toward the building of a new school. The land and building are appraised at $2 million to $3 million. The district would be about $1 million to $2 million short of a new school if it went this route.

Lincoln would like a school so that area children are no longer bused into Bismarck. There are about 530 students in the Lincoln area attending Bismarck schools.

"If we opened a school (in Lincoln) tomorrow, it would be one of our bigger schools," board member Dan Kuntz said.

Lincoln is within the Bismarck School District, so a school in Lincoln would still be a Bismarck Public School.

Every person in Kuntz's discussion group said Myhre should be closed and a school should be opened in Lincoln. A school would be opened in Lincoln because Myhre students would be reassigned to schools that enroll Lincoln-area students. With the addition of the Myhre students, Moses and Will-Moore would become overcrowded.

Overcrowding is the rationale for a new high school. It would be needed if the district moved up ninth grade to the high schools and sixth grade to the middle schools. These changes would make room for all-day, every-day kindergarten.

Some of the participants supported moving the ninth-graders up to high school, but were more reluctant to move the sixth-graders unless they were separated from the seventh- and eighth-graders.

"From a curriculum standpoint, it makes more sense to be nine through 12," Bismarck State College President Larry Skogen said.

Skogen has been a junior high and high school administrator. He begins as president at BSC on March 1. The curriculum is easier to coordinate if all the grades are in one place, and it is easier for students to address the needs of the colleges, such as four years of English, he said.

For some people, the high school should come first, and then the change in grade configuration. Also, if the district is concerned about elementary overcrowding, it could extend to upper grades.

"You're going to have to put a high school in, if overcrowded now (in elementary), you will be on in the higher grades," Lincoln Mayor Glen Christmann said.

A new high school would need more land, and the cost of a 200,000-square-foot high school for 1,200 students would be $25 million plus $5 million in operational costs.

Participants also discussed all-day, every-day kindergarten, which garnered lukewarm support; school calendars; safety in school; and class size and school size.

Each small-group discussion was typed, and a written summary will be sent to participants in a few weeks. At the next school board meeting, the board members will be given the results, Superintendent Paul Johnson said.

"No decisions have been made on any of the issues discussed this evening," Johnson said.

(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)