PORT ANGELES — A serene lake with geese, a quaint apple orchard and breathtaking views of the Olympic Mountains surround Fairview Elementary School seven miles west of Port Angeles.

The location makes Fairview on 166 Lake Farm Road unique among other schools in the Port Angeles School District.

Principal Doug Hayman says that what makes Fairview special are the people inside the school.

That’s why Hayman and his staff have a positive outlook despite the school being targeted for closure in June 2007.

“There’s so much community here,” Hayman said.

“We’re just going to transfer it to another set of brick-and-mortar is all.”

Students, staff to move

Fairview’s students and staff are slated for a move to the current Roosevelt Middle School campus, 106 Monroe Road, as part of a district-wide plan to cut costs due to declining enrollment.

The Port Angeles School Board approved the plan which reorganizes the district’s use of school facilities by realigning its elementary and middle school grade structures.

The elementary grade structure would change from a kindergarten through fifth-grade one to a kindergarten through sixth, reducing the middle school grades to only seventh- and eighth- graders.

With the reduction, the district’s two middle schools would be consolidated at Stevens Middle School, 1139 West 14th St., making Roosevelt available to house Fairview.

The move would change Fairview from the smallest elementary school in the district to the largest.

The anticipated student population of Fairview after the move would be 478, which is an increase of 168 over what it would be if Fairview remained at its current location.

Fairview traditions

One thing Hayman is making sure the move doesn’t disrupt is long-held traditions that are part of Fairview’s community.

“The ownership of this building is the community,” he said.

Some traditions at the school have been in place since before he arrived five years ago.

One of those traditions is having fifth-graders take a turns ringing a bell in a special blue tower when they graduate and move to middle school.

Each student rings the bell twice, once to represent his or her past and once to represent the future, Hayman said.

The tradition is so special that parents often take a day off from work to see it, he said.

A tradition that Hayman helped establish was passing down the care of the apple orchard from the outgoing fifth-grade class to the incoming one.

The orchard was planted in 2003, with each tree belonging to a specific fifth-grader.

The trees, which were marked by silver tags with names and years of students who cared for them, were planted as saplings and are now bearing fruit.

Hayman said the purpose of the orchard is two-fold.

It helps staff teach students about science and agriculture and provides a format to have discussions about tradition and community responsibility.

Students and staff have discussed everything from what it means to take care of something, to the differences between donating and selling something.

Hayman said this year’s discussions will probably revolve around whether it is better to move the trees, or to plant a whole new orchard at Roosevelt.

“What happens to this orchard is secondary to the discussions,” he said.

Final decision Nov. 27

Fairview’s move is still tentative, as the School Board still has to finalize its decision, which is slated for their Nov. 27 meeting.

The public will have a chance to talk about the move at two public hearings on Oct. 12 and 17 before a final decision is made.

In the meantime, Hayman and his staff are focused on getting Fairview ready for the school year, which starts Sept. 5.

“We don’t want our kids to feel uprooted, we don’t want them to be sad,” Fairview secretary Teri Crampton said.

“This is a family, and we’re moving together.”