Yellow signs with a photo of the 117-year-old Lake Pend Oreille High School building popped up across Sandpoint this spring.
“We support LPOHS in its current location,” they read.
The signs are part of a campaign to prevent the alternative school’s planned move from its historic building to trailers behind Sandpoint’s middle school and high school.
Superintendent Becky Meyer in January announced the move to staff, citing declining enrollment, the expense of transporting students to the nearby Sandpoint High for electives, and the aging building.
Community members, led largely by retired art teacher Randy Wilhelm, fear the district intends to close the school.
Meyer denies that’s an option, calling the program’s continuation “imperative” to the community and district.
But some community members, teachers and alumni remain unhappy, arguing students attend the alternative high school to get away from bullying, judgement and other negative experiences at Sandpoint High.
The alternative school is “more than a building and its teachers,” said Bart Gutke, whose son is a student there. “It is an autonomous place where kids who learn differently can go and feel proud about who they are. To move LPO to trailers behind the high school where these kids would be marginalized and looked at as second class citizens would be a travesty to this community.”
The planned move
The district plans to move the school to two portable classrooms and a former driver’s education building behind Sandpoint Middle School.
The middle school shares a campus with Sandpoint High School and the district’s career technical education building, which is set to be completed this summer.
LPO enrollment dropped in recent years, falling from about 100 students in March 2024 to 76 this March.
Some argue staffing changes have contributed to that drop, with electives like art no longer offered on LPO’s campus. Instead, students are bused back to Sandpoint High. Next year, there will be four teachers at the school to cover the core subjects of English, math, social studies, and science. The school’s counselor position will also be eliminated at the end of the school year.
Here are current LPO elective enrollments on Sandpoint High campus:
- Art: 10
- Welding: 11
- Exploring Healthcare: 2
- Band: 2
Of the students enrolled at LPO for next year, 34 of 49 plan to take an elective at Sandpoint High. To bus the students over next year, the district estimates a $46,000 cost. That bus ride also cuts into class time.
“There will be a loss of instruction time, which creates a lack of equality,” Meyer said at a March board meeting.
LPO’s building also needs repairs, said Facilities Director Matt Diel.
The school, originally Lincoln Elementary, was built in 1909 and needs a new roof along with updated plumbing, electrical and fire alarm systems. There is no elevator or lift that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The building was appraised in March for $1.34 million.
There are also two portables at the current LPO site that are near the end of their useful life.
Still, the building isn’t the lowest on the district’s scoring matrix used to evaluate buildings. Both Northside and Washington elementary schools scored a 30, while the current LPO location scored a 36.
The district plans to renovate Sandpoint Middle School, which scored 34, this summer and through next school year, moving some classes into the two portables behind the school.
Following the renovation, the area will be revamped to accommodate LPO starting in the fall of 2027. Assistant Superintendent Casey McLoughlin said he met with teachers and plans to continue meeting with them to plan renovations.
Current ideas include a barbecue and pavilion area, pickleball courts, landscaping to create separation from the middle school, and an addition to one of the buildings.
The new location would be a large drop in space for LPO, with the current location at just over 17,200 square feet. The new location currently offers about 4,600 square feet.
District leaders plan to continue discussing the move and what to do with the building at upcoming board meetings, including Tuesday.
Community pushback
Wilhelm, who taught art at the school for 27 years, has been one of the most vocal opponents of the move.
“My teaching there is the most important thing I’ve done in my life, and I was not going to roll over and just let them dismantle the program,” he told EdNews.
He posted on Facebook in February opposing the move and suggesting it was the first step to closing the program.
The post came around the same time the move was announced publicly in a Sandpoint Reader article. Wilhelm created a Facebook group, Advocates for Lake Pend Oreille High School, with 400 members.
Wilhelm posts videos of alumni and community members advocating for the school to stay in its building. Group members and other patrons attended both the March and April school board meetings and commented against the move.
Wilhelm is concerned the move isn’t about students but about selling the building to balance the district’s budget or provide for investment in other programs.
“This is a crisis that has been manipulated by the superintendent,” Wilhelm said.
He argued that cutting LPO’s teaching positions and electives decreased enrollment. When Wilhelm retired, his position wasn’t filled, and PE classes were cut. The district will also eliminate the culinary program at the end of the current school year as a new program opens at the career technical building.
The building has never been ADA compliant, but many older school buildings are not, Wilhelm said, adding that the school has made it work for students who are blind or have cerebral palsy.
LPO students have always been able to take electives, including career-technical courses, at Sandpoint, but many chose not to because they liked LPO. Now, without electives at the alternative school, students can take independent study courses or go to Sandpoint High.
Wilhelm pushed back against Meyer, implying he’s spreading misinformation on Facebook about the school’s move.
“They’re just not being honest about the reasons they want to do it,” Wilhelm said.
LPO teachers are also frustrated with the move. Brett Johnson has taught English at the school for the last 11 years. The school’s model works for students, he said. Small class sizes allow for individualized instruction, an on-site counselor helps students work through issues, and “family meetings” help create a student community.
“It is the only program in the district specifically for students who do not succeed in traditional environments,” Johnson told trustees at an April board meeting. “That is its purpose. That is its function. What is being proposed is not a refinement of that model. It is a dismantling of it.”
Johnson also argued that cutting teachers and electives fueled the enrollment drop-off in recent years. Still, his classes have about 20 students in each, compared to 12-15 in previous years.
He understands the budget issues but argued that the keeping the school where it is will help students stay out of trouble and become productive community members.
“These are the kids that are going to be out there taking care of all of us, right? These are the kids that are going to be working in your restaurants. They’re going to be taking care of us in the old folks’ home. I mean, they’re the ones that don’t leave,” Johnson said. “They stay in Sandpoint, and we need them to have as many skills as they can get because, as we all know, this town’s not cheap.”
LPO alumni, Kylie Cook told trustees last month that the cuts at the school have led to the current situation, along with inconsistent leadership and a revolving door of principals.
“It’s about the building. I mean, once you walk in those doors, you’re immediately part of the family,” she said. “Families have homes.”
She argued moving back to the high school campus “defeats the purpose” of LPO.
Ellen Ambrose said the school was life-changing for her grandson, whom the family feared wouldn’t graduate.
“Those teachers, every single one of them, took him under their wing, gave him extra time that he needed. They were amazing,” she said. “I would hate to lose that for any other kids.”
Bart Gutke’s son attends LPO and has autism and ADHD, which led to his struggles in traditional school settings.
“He was miserable every day and hated school more than anything. By the time he was in middle school, he was at his breaking point,” Gutke told trustees last month. “His mental health was at its lowest point that it’s ever been.”
The Gutkes feared their son was going to drop out or die, he said. But then he enrolled in LPO, a “quiet and peaceful” environment, and is thriving.
“One of the biggest contributors to the success of LPO is its autonomy,” he said. “It has its own atmosphere and a completely unique learning environment.”
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