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The Elk Rapids Public Schools Board of Education approved the change during its workshop session Monday.

Trustee Doug Coates said the switch requires "a leap of faith a bit" as far as financing. During a final presentation about the trimester system, district business manager Jeff Scroggins said that at this point in the year the district is about $500,000 away from balancing its budget. He said after the meeting this number is still very preliminary.

He said he's hopeful for more full-time equivalent students and per-pupil rate increases to erase that deficit. The amount of fulltime equivalent students, or blended count, is averaged from counts done in February and September of each year.

There are still a lot of unknowns in the district's budget, he said.

"But I think what will be revealed is trimesters can be accommodated," he said.

He said the starting point of budgeting for the year assumes no additions to the blended count of students or per-pupil allowances. Scroggins said replacing the two retirees will be built into the budget, but adding an additional staff member would cost about $66,000, including textbooks and wages. District superintendent Jon Hoover said he would not recommend adding an teacher.

Trustee Vernon LaLone, while making a motion to approve the changeover, asked if it should be contingent on budget factors. Hoover said no; it will be part of their "battle plan."

He said the district may need to pink slip some teachers at the elementary and middle school levels in order to replace the departing high school teachers. The law requires notification of layoffs to be sent May 1, but Hoover said he would ask for an extension to June 1 after the budget is finalized. He wouldn't want to "put a teacher through a pink slip" only to call him or her back in June, he said. Hoover said the economy that is already bad is getting worse.

"I'm more concerned about this budget than all the others combined," he said.

A notable aspect of the budget is that there had been 24 options to reduce costs, but only seven remain, he said.

"(It's) getting skinnier and skinnier on ways to go," he said.

He said the district needs a raw count of 1,600 students, and if there are more a new teacher could be a possibility. The raw count of students is the actual number of enrolled pupils, which was about 1,525 in February.

Hoover said the district needs to not only replace its 120 graduates along with about 67 students who will leave the area, but it also needs to add 100 more students. Retention is becoming an issue for the district because of families leaving an area they can't afford, he said. He's trying to find ways to keep them in the area, he added.