Acting-based elementary classes to end in E. Idaho

POCATELLO (AP) - An eastern Idaho elementary school that for 34 years has offered an acting-based curriculum for students in kindergarten through sixth grade plans to end the program.

The Franciscan sisters who run the Cre-Act School in Pocatello announced Thursday to faculty members and families that the program will end at the end of this academic year.

"The Cre-Act School has had a strong and vigorous life as an institution," Sister Francine Cardew, director of education for the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist in Portland, Ore., told the Idaho State Journal. "It's not something that the Franciscan Sisters have decided lightly to close."

She said the program, with 46 students, faced a variety of challenges.

"One would be finances of course," she said. "Another would be finding the appropriate staffing for the specialized program to make it develop as a Cre-Act school should develop."

Cardew said the Cre-Act lessons use body movement and the senses, and that students might form groups to illustrate math problems.

She said the sisters plan to merge a preschool with the existing READ program, which offers after-school tutoring in reading for youths. Those will also be merged with the Franciscan Counseling Center, and the elderly program to form a new Franciscan Intergenerational Service.

It's unclear where the intergenerational program will be held, or what will be done with the building that held the Cre-Act School.

"That's still in the process," said Sister Anthony Marie Greving, a member of the local Franciscan community. "We could put it up for sale, but that's yet to be determined."