The Bismarck School District finalized a lease with Church of Corpus Christi.

Classrooms and other space will be leased from the church for the upcoming school year to accommodate Northridge Elementary School kindergarten students. The elementary school did not have enough space to accommodate the switch to all-day kindergarten this fall.

The Bismarck School Board approved the lease at its school board meeting Monday. It is a 10-month lease, starting Aug. 1, with an option to renew for a year.

Rent would be paid up front, and would cost about $92,430 a year. The base rent is $6.41 per square foot and $4.59 per square foot for operation and maintenance. The district and church agreed that the districts usage is 8,403 square feet for five classrooms and the use of the parish hall, kitchen and bathrooms. The actual square foot of the area that will be used by the district is about 12,804 square feet but some areas will be shared by the church, or includes areas like hallways.

In exchange for the operation and maintenance rent payment, the church will pay up to $16,300 in utilities, provide snow removal and custodial services. The district will pay for storing the items removed from the rooms through the term of the lease as well as recarpeting a classroom and installing playground equipment, which would be removed at the end of the lease.

"Corpus Christi was extremely accommodating," board member Parrell Grossman said. The district made demands on the church, such as packing away religious items, to which they agreed, Grossman said.

In addition to the lease, the board acting on other items to prepare the district for all-day, every-day kindergarten in the fall. They approved funding for a new kindergarten screening process called kindergarten round up. This will give students and their parents a chance to come into the school, be screened for school readiness and possibly identify any learning problems.

The district also is in the process of hiring kindergarten teachers for the fall. It needs to hire six more teachers, after three teachers in the district transferred to kindergarten from another grade. In all, the district will hire about 9 teachers, which is less than the 14 originally estimated.

Parents are still enrolling students for kindergarten, and until numbers stabilize, the district won't know who many portable classrooms it will need. Superintendent Paul Johnson said it shouldn't be more than five.

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