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Both of the Steamboat Springs School District's elementary schools will hire an additional teacher this summer to reduce class sizes.

The moves stem from Monday's decision by the Steamboat Springs Board of Education to approve a two-teacher gift from the Education Fund Board. The board's 4-1 vote to accept the gift followed its May 19 rejection of a three-teacher Fund Board gift.

School Board President Paul Fisher and board member Paula Stephenson, who both voted against the three-teacher gift in May, cast "yes" votes Monday night.

Fisher said his decision to vote in favor of the proposal was made in large part to applaud the compromise made by the Fund Board's Educational Excellence Commission. The commission, which makes funding requests to the Fund Board, dropped the number of teachers in its request from three to two after the School Board denied the initial gift. The denial marked just the second time in Fund Board history a School Board rejected a gift. The May 19 gift denial sparked anger from parents, teachers and principals who said class sizes at some elementary grade levels could reach up to 26 students next year.

Stephenson voted Monday in favor of the gift after discussing the needs for the additional teachers with Soda Creek Principal Judy Harris and Strawberry Park Principal John DeVincentis, she said.

The two-teacher gift is for one year only.

Also at Monday's School Board meeting, the board approved two policies dealing with the distribution and posting of written material, the dissemination of certain spoken material and meetings of noncurriculum-related student groups.

Board policy GP-19, which addressed the distribution and posting of material on district grounds, came under fire last year when several parents complained about the presence of religious group representatives in Steamboat Springs Middle School during lunch.

At least one of the parents complained about the district's willingness to allow community members into the school during the school day to discuss topics or issues not related to school curriculum. Community members should not be given access to a captive audience such as middle school children, especially when the subject is religion, which should be discussed within families, parent Jeff Troeger said.

Supporters of allowing community members and groups in school argue, among other points, that role models are needed in schools.

Community members who visited the middle school last school year followed district policies and instructions from building administrators, middle school Principal Tim Bishop has told the School Board on several occasions.

Though school district attorney Chris Gdowski told the School Board its previous policy was legal, Gdowski submitted to the board in April drafts of several new policies after he held discussions with the American Civil Liberties Union. School Board member Tom Sharp, who authored the board's original distribution-of-written-material policy, said there was no need for any new policies. Sharp has publicly stated his belief in the value Christian-based youth organizations have to children.

In an effort at compromise, Sharp drafted a revised distribution policy that includes guidelines for spoken material, previously unaddressed by district policy.

The new policy, approved by the School Board on Monday, restricts spoken material that, when viewed as a whole, proselytizes a particular religious belief. According to the policy, any restricted spoken material cannot be disseminated on the grounds of an elementary school by any person to any student within a classroom or the lunchroom during regular class time or lunch period, or on the grounds of the middle school and high school by anyone other than a student, with the exception of a reasonable location determined by the building principal.

The second policy approved by the School Board on Monday, titled "Meetings of noncurriculum-related student groups," spells out the provisions of the federal Equal Access Act.

Troeger said on Tuesday he was pleased a district policy now specifically addresses the Equal Access Act, but he remains concerned by the district's stance that community groups and members are welcomed into schools.

"They've opened the schools to just about any group," Troeger said. "We still have the problems of adults coming to the school and getting to your kids without permission and without parents knowing what's going on."