School Addition Urged

The Dixboro School Parent-Teacher Organization made a plea last night for its four-room school to be enlarged and completed as soon as possible. 1 "We don't need an adequate building here tomorrow, we need it yesterday," Mrs. Barbara Trojan, chairman of tlie PTO Building Committee, told the Ann Arbor Board of Education. The trustees held their meeting last night at Dixboro School. Dixboro has just four permanent rooms and five portables, one of which is used as a combination library, gymnasium and multi-purpose room. Dixboro Principal Jack E. Engelhardt recently transported the older students to Clinton School so the children could see what a real gymnasium is like. Science facilities also are lacking, according to a Dixboro mother. Dixboro PTO President Ronald L. Redick told the trustees the Dixboro people voted to be annexed to the Ann Arbor School District in 1958, largely because of proroises to enlarge the building. Two additional classrooms were built on the existing two-room facility in November of 1958. No other permanent additions have been made. Bonding issues, of which were earmarked for Dixboro additions, were approved by the voters in 1963, 1964 and 1965, but the funds were "allocated to seemingly more important areas," PTO spokesmen said, such as Huron High School. There are 208 pupils at Dixboro this year. In 1970-71, about 230 children are expected. This means another portable classroom, raising the number to six, will probably be needed. Mrs. Trojan told the school board the parents do not want an extravagant facility, simply a complete one. Albert Chaffee, president-elect of the Ann Arbor Education Association, said his group is "deeply concerned that an I inequality of educational opportunityl should appear to exist within the Ann 1 bor Public School System." Lüattee said ït is "deplorable that the students here at Dixboro School have been and are being denied the total range of instruction. available in the other elementary schools, due to an inadequate and overcrowded school plant." School Supt. W. Scott Westerman Jr. admitted the addition to Dixboro is "long overdue," and he promised that funds for the addition would be part of a bonding issue presented to the public in June. But he said no other money is available for the construction, unless the voters approve the bonding issue. "We are at a crossroads. We either succeed in June or else," he said. If funds are approved by the voters this spring, Westerman said the addition perhaps could be ready for occupancy by the fall of 1971.