POULSBO — More than one-third of all of North Kitsap School District’s students currently learn, whether on a field trip or in a class, at the Marine Science Center.

But due to the Marine Science Society of the Pacific Northwest’s (MSSPNW) pullout of the center — and the dismantling of the majority of exhibits there — that number is guaranteed to change. The district is faced with two main options.

“They could get rid of the building and programs entirely,” said Holly Foley, one of two full-time teachers the district has at the center. “Or they may use the buildings for educational purposes.”

Vacating the premises is the simplest choice, cutting the program and lightening the load of the school district’s reported $500,000 in impending budget cuts for the next school year. The district currently spends about $138,000 a year to operate at the center. This expense has ensured that some 2,300 students in NKSD can use the center each year for activities ranging from elementary field trips to four permanent classes in biology, marine biology and marine technical education.

A $10,000 feasibility study, funded jointly by the City of Poulsbo and the North Kitsap School District, aims to find out if a new marine science center can be created — and kept financially afloat. The assessment will help determine if the district has any hope of staying in the MSC.

Maintaining the district’s current programming was ruled out when the school board decreed that the high school will be returning to a six-period day next year, going from 85-minute block classes to 55 minute classes. In shorter classes, there isn’t enough instructional time for courses at the MSC because students have to be bused between it and the high school.

On the flip side, going to a six-period day has increased the demand for classrooms at the high school, with the school administration saying at least six more are needed. Classroom portables are an option — but so is the district’s leased 10,000-square feet of space at the MSC.

This could mean that teachers in other subjects could be moved to the center to take advantage of the space and students could remain there for classes for half of the day — or perhaps a full day, in the form of a small learning community (SLC).

An SLC could come in the form of a MAST, or “Marine, Arts, Science and Technology,” an academy-like program similar to the Polaris concept, the district’s first SLC.

“I’d love to see it happen,” Foley said of the SLC idea. “I think if we brought in math and english, we could teach a cohort of students. There is a way. And (in that case), we could still teach elementary students.”

But Lillian Cone, the other teacher at the center, said she doesn’t want to see NKSD simply view the science center as extra space.

“They’re looking at it as real estate and not as educational programming,” she said. “We have the hopes to build a MAST here. That’s our vision.”

But it all comes back to finances, which may rule out any use of the center next year.

“We know the importance of marine science education,” said NKSD Supt. Gene Medina. “But really question if we can afford to do this.”