Additional public forums will be held in the Warren County R-III School District to help determine whether a proposed change to kindergarten to fifth-grade schools should be made in the near future. At last Wednesday's school board meeting, six community members voiced opinions against the proposal. Open forums have been scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 29, at noon and Thursday, Oct. 1, at 6 p.m. Both meetings will be held at the Black Hawk Middle School media center. District officials are encouraging community members to attend and voice their opinion. Currently, elementary school students attend three different schools in the district - Daniel Boone, Warrior Ridge and Rebecca Boone. Dr. Travis Arndt opened last week's forum with a caution to the board against equating change with progress. "I'm not against progress, but I am against change disguised as progress. Motion is not the same as moving forward," he said. Arndt disagreed with administrators' suggestion, made at the August meeting, that reorganizing the schools would help accreditation issues. "It's like using Visa to pay MasterCard," he said. Karyn Burroughs agreed, noting the district is just one of many that could not meet accreditation standards and that changing to K-five schools provides no guarantee for success. "When I looked it up I found that many of the schools having trouble reaching the standard were already K-five schools," Burroughs said. Many community members objected to the cost of the proposed change. Last month, Superintendent Dr. John Long estimated the cost of the move to K-five schools at $500,000. Last week, Long changed the cost estimate to $224,768. Arndt questioned the discrepancy between the cost estimates. "You need to look at having realistic expectations and spend the amount of money it takes to make this plan succeed otherwise you are wasting all of our time," he said. John Cornell agreed with Arndt. "Is it $500,000 or 224,000? How do we know? Only a comprehensive plan will tell," Cornell said. However, he also emphasized that the lower estimated cost is irrelevant. "If the change is not necessary, then the money is wasted," he said. Susan McCann asserted that district funds would be better spent in other ways. "The money should be spent on education, for example, to decrease class sizes or increase teacher salaries," McCann said. She also expressed concerns about zoning. "Our district covers 200 square miles, mostly rural. It can be far between houses, so school is where a lot of the kids meet friends the same age," McCann said. Tina Flake agreed with this concern, saying "you will ruin the camaraderie." In the event the board does decide to move to K-five schools, Laurie Wenzel urged the board to include the community in the zoning process. "I advocate a participatory process to engage the community. Redistricting is an emotional issue. I ask that a group of parents make the dividing lines. No solution will please everyone, but it would send a message to the community that all are important," Flake said. After the parents spoke, Steve McDowell, president of the Warrenton Education Association, presented the results of a recent teacher survey. At the August board meeting, it had been suggested that the majority of teachers were in favor of the change to K-five schools. However, the survey results suggested that, while teachers anticipated several positive effects of the change, they also had a number of concerns about its implementation.