Packed Valley schools are out of room

MAT-SU -- Many Mat-Su schools are quickly running out of space. Several core-area schools are way over enrollment capacity and are forced to use increasing numbers of outdoor portables.

On average, the Mat-Su Borough School District is gaining nearly 500 new students each year, and, with massive subdivisions planned in both Palmer and Wasilla, those numbers are likely to increase. Kim Floyd, information specialist for Mat-Su Schools, said rapid population growth is one of the biggest issues the district will face in coming years.

In response to this challenge, the school district is hosting two town meetings this week to discuss solutions with the public. The first meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 16, at Wasilla High School. The second will take place Thursday, Nov. 18, at Sherrod Elementary in Palmer. Both meetings will run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

"While we don't drive growth, we must respond when it happens," Floyd wrote in an e-mail Wednesday. "With reports of plans for several 600-home subdivisions in both Palmer and Wasilla, our concern only deepens."

Floyd said the district wants the community to help brainstorm solutions. For the long term, she said the district needs new schools, including one school on Knik-Goose Bay Road as well as schools on the Springer Loop System in Palmer and one near the Trunk Road area, by the new hospital construction.

In the interim, Floyd said something else will have to be done.

"We are hoping to get feedback and ideas from the community about what to do," Floyd said. "We don't have all the ideas. What will we do to maintain small class sizes and provide safe learning environments for our kids?"

While the district has no final plans, Floyd said district officials want to discuss options with the community. One idea is to add more portables, but Floyd said this is not ideal.

"Portables are situated off the main building and kids have to travel back and forth to go to the bathroom, gym and lunch," Floyd said. "They are also expensive to construct, at nearly $70,000 each."

There are other options, but Floyd cautioned that many of them would not be popular. They include permanent boundary changes and double-shifting severely crowded schools by using the same building to run two separate schools at different times of the day. Other options might be piloting year-round schools at select facilities.

Floyd is careful to point out that these are only ideas, and she said she hopes the community will add more ideas to the mix.

Ultimately Floyd said additional schools will need to be built through school bonds, which she hopes will be on the ballot in fall 2005.

The cost of constructing one new elementary school will likely be at least $12 million -- the price tag of the new Wasilla Elementary School, which is slated to open in 2007.

Expenses will only go up, however, as land prices rise and availability decreases. Floyd said it is important that the Mat-Su Borough commit to long-range planning for school sites instead of being reactive and building several years after the fact.

According to Floyd, core-area schools only have enough room for 9,812 students, but more than 12,000 students currently attend those schools.

"Even when we bring on the new Wasilla Elementary School in 2007, we won't gain any ground," Floyd said. "We feel it's best to secure land now because it will be needed in the future."

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.