School district makes wish list

MAT-SU -- There are lots of things the Mat-Su Borough School District would like to do. Like everyone else living on a budget, however, they have to choose where to spend money first.

When asked by the borough assembly which capital improvement projects were on their short list for 2004, the school board last week came up with 13 capital improvement projects they felt were most necessary.

Number one on the wish list? An $18.6 million career center, or vocational high school. Kim Floyd, the district's public information officer, said currently the district runs several technology career education programs through various schools.

"A lot of our students are not necessarily going to go to college," said Chief School Administrator Bob Doyle. "They need to be prepared for careers. We can't have a strong, say, welding program or auto shop program at every high school."

The new career center would consolidate those into one building, and serve about 350 high school students full-time, Doyle said, as they work both toward their high school diploma and at career training. An additional 350 or so students would come for specific classes while working toward their diplomas at their regular high schools.

Number two on the list is a new nutrition services facility. Currently, the district's facility is run through the large kitchen at Iditarod Elementary School, and it long ago outgrew itself, Floyd said, having to pull "double duty" to feed the district's student lunches.

"Storage is an issue as well," Floyd said, noting that the district "has had to turn down free food (and funding for food from the federal government) because we've had no place to put it." The new $12 million facility would be located at a separate location, to be determined at a later date, she said.

The third item on the list is a new Wasilla-area elementary school. With other area schools already nearly full, and growth in the area continuing, Floyd said the district could fill a new elementary school "every year." The $12 million project was originally number 10 on the list, but the board voted to bump it up at their last meeting.

Other items include:

4. $1.2 million to complete the fire sprinkler system at Palmer Junior Middle School, to include replacing some old and corroded piping.

5. $550,000 for fire alarm upgrades at Su Valley High School, and Iditarod and Snowshoe elementary schools

6. $3.5 million for adapting the current Sherrod Elementary School site, to be converted into district administration offices this summer after the elementary school moves to its new building.

7. $1 million for phase II of construction at the Palmer Alternative School, also known as Valley Pathways, including purchase of a site and moving the existing portables and additional portables with site improvements. It could include adapting existing structure in lieu of moving some of the portables. Eventually, Doyle said, the district would like to see something along the lines of Burchell High School in Wasilla, but that is much farther in the future, he said.

8. $4 million for the remodeling of Iditarod Elementary School. Floyd explained that after the district's nutrition center would be moved out of the school's kitchen area, the space would be converted into classrooms.

9. $200,000 to replace badly weathered siding, worn out doors and 38-year-old windows at Big Lake Elementary School.

10. $200,000 to improve the ventilation system at Colony High School.

11. $7.8 million to construct a new Academy Charter School, replacing eight portables and a converted maintenance garage on the existing site. The school will have a capacity of 232 students in grades K-8.

12. $8.2 million to construct a new Midnight Sun Charter School, with a capacity of 153 students grades K-12, on a new site. The new school would replace property now being leased by the district, and a new site would still have to be acquired.

13. $12 million for a new Palmer-area elementary school.

The district actually has a list of proposed capital improvements that is some 60 items long, said the district's facilities coordinator, Michael Schwartz. The board only approved items numbered 1-13 on their list to be sent to the assembly, leaving a good number of projects on the shelf for now, to be looked at during the next several years.

The Palmer-area elementary school barely made the list, in part because the state looks at open classroom space in Sutton and Butte when deciding which areas are crowded enough to need a new school built, Schwartz said. Several hundred thousand dollars' worth of fire alarm upgrades at Colony High School and other schools barely missed being on the short list, as did roof improvements at Su Valley High School, and $350,000 for lockers and bleachers at Palmer High School.

The district's CIP list will be passed on to the borough, which then must decide which projects to put up for bond. "The borough could overrule us though," Schwartz said, "and say, 'No, you don't need that.'"

If the borough approves the projects and they're sent on as part of bond packages, and they're approved by the Department of Education, Doyle said the borough would only have to pay 30 to 40 cents on the dollar for the projects, with the federal government supplying the rest.