9-28-15 Lewiston School Board Meeting from VIA-VISION Video on Vimeo.

LEWISTON — City schools have 250 new students this fall, more than double the number expected, Superintendent Bill Webster told the School Committee on Monday evening.

“The professional demographic study we had done last year in December forecast an increase of roughly 100 students . . . We’re up about 250 students from last year,” Webster said. And all of them are new this month, he said.

The city is seeing a combination of fewer families moving out “and many more people moving into Lewiston,” he said.

Lewiston’s total student enrollment is 5,531.

There are so many new students that the nine new classrooms recently added “are not going to make a dent in reducing class size,” Webster said.

The committee created three new classrooms last spring, then added another six this summer to reduce class sizes.

Several years ago a wing was added to McMahon Elementary School to provide more classroom space. That wing is full, as are all schools.

Meanwhile, the School Department can’t wait for a larger elementary school planned to open in 2019 to reduce overcrowding in other schools.

“So we are developing a plan,” Webster said.

He may recommend Lewiston build a small school – perhaps at Farwell Elementary – with six classrooms in September 2016. More information on that will be coming next month.

Webster said, until then, the number of new students present challenges: Administrators don’t have the time to be educational leaders in their buildings, there’s more stress on teachers and more work for custodians and food service workers.

“As you know, we’re now serving breakfast and lunch to every student,” he said.

The 250 new students are spread out from grades 1-12, Webster said. Last year’s kindergarten projection “is right on, 454 versus 455,” Webster said. The city is seeing a combination of fewer families moving out “and many more people moving into Lewiston.”

The new students’ demographics haven’t been fully analyzed, Webster said. There are a number who do not speak English, though current English Language Learner student numbers were not available Monday, he said. Lewiston has also had more English speaking students move in.

The problem of too many students is a better problem than what many Maine districts are encountering: declining enrollment and layoffs, Webster said.

Committee Chairman Jim Handy asked if the 250 new students came after the committee voted to spend $500,000 in August and $100,000 in September to reduce class sizes.

Webster said they are all new this month.

“We did make a valiant effort to reduce class sizes,” Handy said, adding that work will continue.

After the meeting, Webster said he asked City Manager Ed Barrett where all the new families are living.

“He doesn’t know. We’ve got an explosion here,” he said.

Lewiston High School Principal Shawn Chabot said the average class size is 21 or 22 students, “up slightly from last year. The more kids you have in class, the less individual attention teachers can provide. It does impact student learning.”

Also, the high school is running out of space. Teachers have one period off a day.

“When their classroom isn’t being used, we fill it with another teacher and class,” Chabot said. “The capacity of the high school is approaching max capacity.”

Before Webster gave his enrollment report, Lewiston Education Association President Samantha Garnett, who teaches at the high school, said teachers are facing heavier workloads and “feeling really stressed out. Feeling like there’s a lot to do, not a lot of time to do it in.”

She said she has heard that from elementary, middle and high school teachers. Class sizes have been an unexpected stressor for high school teachers, she said.

“I don’t have a solution,” Garnett said. “I wanted to let you know that’s what I’m hearing from my colleagues.”

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LEWISTON — The Lewiston School Committee on Monday night also:

* Met Ted Hall, who has been hired as the proficiency-based learning consultant for Lewiston High School and other Lewiston schools. Hall retired as Yarmouth High School principal in June and has experience with PBL.

* Approved an educational plan, drawn up by teachers and administrators of Longley and Martel schools, for the new elementary school that will replace those schools in the fall of 2019.

* Approved the proposed school’s site selection application that will be sent to the Maine School Board and Maine Department of Education. Pending approval from the state, plans are to hold a Lewiston referendum asking voters to approve the new school at the June election.