Wednesday, March 5, 2008

I would like to explain K. dufur's question regarding why a 4-6 elementary is being proposed to relieve crowding at the middle school/high school: The 60 member facility advisory committee that met last school year determined that this was the most economical, efficient solution that met the long term needs of the district. The plan is to move 5th-6th out of the 5-12 complex freeing space there. The high school will migrate to the middle school over time.

Building a high school was considered. But the committee and school board recognized the cost in the $50M range plus the need to acquire 40-50 acres off-site somewhere to meet state standards as a proposition that was too expensive.

Also, this proposal calls for additional science and music space. We are running short on science labs to meet the demand. Plus science requirements are increasing in the future which will require more science space.

This proposal was developed by taxpayers in the school district, so taxpayers were very well represented and considered when the Facility Advisory Committee developed the recommendation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That makes sense, I suppose. Supposing this all went through and you bought land, where would you buy it? Where would you put the school, and would you need to negotiate for the land, or do you already have that in the works? Would you need to hire new teachers? If you had to work out a deal with the owners of the land you want, how long would those take and haw soon would you start building.
Of course, this is all hypothetical . I'm sorry I don't have anymore to contribute but more questions but they just occurred to me. I'm not really acquainted with the area around the school, but isn't it all residental?

Superintendent's Blog said...

We have purchase agreements on 13 acres across the street west of the elementary and north of the water treatment plant. Those purchase agreements expire on April 30. It may be difficult to renew them if the election isn't approved. A site plan is available on the election information website that can show you how this looks.

We hire more teachers as needed as our enrollment increases. We project that we will hire two secretaries, a media center para, some technonlogy support and custodians to get the building operational.