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School district to try bond again The Mountain Home School District will try again on April 29 to pass a major school bond that would complete Phase II of the long-delayed high school project. Last September the district asked voters to approve a $34.5 million bond issue, but the measure failed by a narrow, 73-vote margin, in a relatively low voter turnout. That gave the district confidence that if it could get more people to the polls, in particular more supporters of the plan who didn't vote in the last election, the measure would stand a good chance of passing. April was one of the earliest dates they could legally try for the bond again. In 1998, when the district built what is today the junior high, it anticipated at that time going for the Phase II bond to expand the facility into a high school in only a couple of years. But instead of climbing as anticipated, enrollment in the district actually began to decline at that point, causing the district to delay completing the project. In recent years, however, enrollment has begun to climb again, forcing the district to re-evaluate where it is going to put all its new students. "We soft-pedaled the bond the first time," Supt. Tim McMurtrey admitted. "We wanted to see the feeling of the community. Although we lost, the vote told us we had a good plan, and should try again." The school board is expected to go with essentially the same plan as last time, although architect Don Hutchinson, who is designing the expansion, has told the board to anticipate a 4.9 percent increase in costs due to skyrocketing construction costs over the last seven months. On the plus side, however, bond interest rates are expected to be lower than the last time, which may mitigate some of those increases. The board has yet to approve the final plan, or the bond cost, that it will send to the voters in April, but is expected to do so within the next month. Last time, the bond election was held on a Thursday, a date that confused many voters. This time, it will be held on a normal Tuesday, and the board anticipates opening the polls at 8 a.m., rather than noon, to give more flexibility to voters. In addition, because many voters work in Boise, the board also is expected to put an emphasis on absentee ballot voting to help voters. "We need to be more conscious of the issues and make the plan better known to folks out there," McMurtrey said. As an example, an issue arose at the last minute involving an indoor track on the second level of the gymnasium. "We didn't see that coming at all," McMurtrey said. "Some people wondered why we were going to all that extra expense. But in reality, the design of the gym called for a walk area on the second floor, and we just decided to spend a few extra pennies to lay down a rubber carpet so people could use it as an indoor running area. It's not a full track by any means." Part of the plan to expand the junior high school into a full-fledged high school requires the construction of a competition gym that meets state standards for a high school. The existing gym does not, but adding a high-school-level competition gym to the original Phase I plan would have added several million dollars to the plan, a cost the district did not want the voters to pay for until it was necessary to do so. The gym expansion, along with improved locker room, weight room and wrestling facilities, would benefit both students and parents by solving what are currently some major scheduling problems for athletic teams to practice. Currently, athletic teams have to be scheduled either at other buildings in the district to practice, or staggered in the main gym on schedules that sometimes force some teams to practice late at night. In addition, the gym would be designed to handle graduation activities, the district's largest annual event. Air conditioning would allow parents to view graduation in comfort, offer better opportunities to get good photos of their children (or grandchildren) graduating, and eliminate the vagaries of weather interfering with graduation activities that currently are held outdoors. The plan also calls for a major auditorium for both school and community events, a new and greatly expanded vocational-technical building and an additional classroom wing at the current junior high to accommodate the extra students at the high school. In the long run, that's one of the key points of the bond, as far as the district is concerned The expansion would allow the district to put all of its students earning high school graduation credits in one building, helping maximize the efficiency of scheduling classes and instructors for the students. Currently, ninth-grade students remain at the junior high. Under the plan that the bond issue would allow, if approved, the district would move those students into the high school. The junior high would be composed of grades 7 and 8 and would be located at the current high school "where there is plenty of space for them," McMurtrey said. And those changes would allow Hacker Middle School to handle only grades 5 and 6 (currently grade 7 is there as well), greatly reducing the overcrowding at Hacker. "Frankly, the overcrowding at Hacker is one of the driving forces behind this" bond issue proposal, McMurtrey said. "Really, it's all about educating the kids, giving them the opportunities to learn" in proper environments that are not overcrowded, he said. And among those opportunities would be the greatly expanded and new high school vo-tech facilities that are part of the bond issue plan. The district is well aware, McMurtrey said, that not all students go on to college. But currently, the limited vo-tech facilities mean some students have to be turned away from the program, and the classes that can be offered are limited as well. "We want to provide a facility and a curriculum that will allow these kids to enter the workforce (after graduation) and have the skills to be able to enjoy good-paying jobs." McMurtrey said the district hopes to form a citizens' group that will help it promote the bond, and anyone interested in helping should contact him at the district office (587-2580). "We're going to push this a lot harder than we did last time, because we believe we have a good plan, one that's good for the kids, and because we believe the support for it is out there, if we can just get those 'yes' votes to the polls." McMurtrey admitted that one of the problems the district faced the last time around was a perception, and a certain level of anger, by some voters, that they had already approved a bond for a high school in 1998, but then the district used the building for a junior high instead. But, McMurtrey noted, the district had made it clear in 1998 that the building would originally be a junior high until Phase II was approved. "The information was out there, but some people didn't see it, and it didn't help that for a couple days somebody had put a sign up (at the junior high site) saying this was going to be the future site of the new high school. We got that sign down pretty fast, but the damage had been done." At the same time, he said, that misperception is no reason to vote against the current bond proposal. "We've got to get beyond that. It's just hurting our kids." McMurtrey said the district also needs to do a better job explaining to parents at the elementary level that the bond will benefit their children when they reach high school age. Last September's bond issue did well at the polling sites at the high school, junior high and Hacker, but support fell off at the elementary school polling sites. "We've got to stress what this means to the future, that we're not just looking at the next two or three years, but 15-20 years down the road. We're designing this so we can expand in the future. This is a facility that will last our students a very long time." The district's current growth is starting to stress its current buildings' capacity, and McMurtrey said it is better to build for the future now, while it's cheaper, than wait until the district gets into a situation like the Meridian School District, where it is constantly behind the curve and voters are repeatedly being asked to support new bonds for new buildings. But that's also why the design of Phase II includes the capability to expand in the future when necessary. "We don't want to overbuild, either," he said. Like Goldilocks' search for a warm bed and hot meal, the plan going to the voters in April is "just right," he said, to meet the district's needs, relieve overcrowding, and expand educational opportunities for the district's students, now, and in the future.
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