Littlejohn principal Marty Jurkowski said the time has come for a referendum to alleviate the school of what has become a pressing overcrowding issue that’s about to become worse.

Littlejohn Elementary School, 1121 School St., with its 460-student base, boasts the highest number of students (pre-k through fourth grade) in any District 428 elementary school. Jurkowski said while growth in Littlejohn has remained stagnant as of late, a new housing project behind Lowe’s on Sycamore Road potentially could add an additional 60 students within the next couple years.

Jurkowski said one of the more frustrating problems the school faces is having the main entryway and administrative offices of the school on the south end of the school while the only place for employees and parents to park are on the school’s north side. Jurkowski said she’d like to see the offices moved closer to the parking lot so people don’t have to dread walking a considerable distance to reach the main entryway.

“In terms of people finding the office, it’s tough,” Jurkowski said. “Right now we’re landlocked.”

Once people reach the main entryway, Jurkowski said they’re met with one of the many telltale signs of their school’s overcrowded space. Boxes of papers, large garbage cans and sometimes coats and boots from students inside the mobile classrooms fill the main entryway because Littlejohn has no available room or section within its facility to store utilities.

Jurkowski said once inside the school, problems immediately are evident. Gifted education students and tutoring programs are all done on desks in the middle of the hallway. Also, a steadily used Xerox machine lies against the wall inside the main hallway, a resort the school had to take because teachers have no space for a workroom.

Jurkowksi said another significant sign of the school’s overcrowding is apparent when teachers and administrators have conferences. Because Littlejohn has no conference room, meetings either take place in the hallway or inside a classroom, which usually results in kicking teachers out of their classroom.

The teachers at Littlejohn also are forced to use a small room with five tables for lunch, this cannot accommodate all teachers and causes most of them to eat in the library or at home.

The library itself is hardly a library, Jurkowski said. With classrooms on two different sides of the library, the room itself serves as more of a hallway than a place for quiet study and book reading.

Jurkowski said other problems that exist are reflected in the room their art teachers call an office. In what looks more like a boiler room, the art teachers are forced to use a tiny, poorly lighted room that is devoid of ventilation. The art teachers must travel back and forth from their classrooms to their office and down into the school’s basement where inside a tiny room they store their art supplies.

Jurkowski said the other room in the basement is where special education classes take place. Because there is no elevator, Jurkowski said if the school should have a student with a physical disability, there could be serious problems in terms of transportation up and down the stairs.

Inside Littlejohn’s mobile classrooms, pre-k teacher Alicia Wilson said her students, along with the fourth graders in the other classroom, have many problems with space. Having to move outside because no further room existed inside, pre-k students in both morning and afternoon classes are constantly cramped and tripping over another pre-k teacher Margo Overton said.

These kids are so full of energy that it gets tough having all them inside this tiny classroom, she said. At this age group, what they need is space.

Overton said other problems the teachers see within the portables are when their kids have to clean their hands. The one small bathroom the school has is cluttered with boxes of clothes, plastic boxes and a portable storage closet.

In terms of the fourth graders, Overton said a major problem for them is going back and forth between the portable and the main school. For one, when they go to lunch or PE, they have to bundle up during cold weather and then throw their coats on the floor inside the school’s main entryway. Also, with one teacher helping 20 some students, if a student becomes ill or injured in any way, another student usually has to accompany the other to the nurse’s office.

Jurkowski said if the referendum is successful, she would hope the district would find ways to allocate dollars to Littlejohn to assist the school. Jurkowski said that would be important because, as part of the referendum, fifth graders would be transferred to the elementary level.

Jurkowski said Littlejohn, for quite some time, has been overcrowded and in need of changes. She hopes the school would sooner, rather than later, witness some of those much-needed improvements.