OCR Text |
Show High school site Dear Editor: Now that the school bond has won narrow nar-row approval, most everyone should agree on wanting to get the most, long term, educational benefits possible for the entire District area. It was very pleasing to see the School Board advertise for a new school site. ' Certainly Ashley Creek has many problems pro-blems and cost the school bond more votes than it obtained. However, the published Request for Proposals had some very disturbing aspects. It emphasized em-phasized a desire for Central Vernal City Ci-ty locations, discouraged proposals from other areas in Ashley Valley and indicated in-dicated that as small as 30 acres would be considered to get the desired location. It is difficult to see any benefit to education educa-tion by establishing that criteria. I have always supported education and this new school and I feel that most parents want their kids to get the very best education possible, especially at high school. We have great opportunities and many educational programs available to us, if we will plan facilities to utilize them effectively. Let's keep up with other schools by providing a full range of educational opportunities to all students in the district and then we can focus on excelling in quality of education in each department. Many university oriented students complete their high school requirements early and use their ' electives to earn a year of transferrable college credit in high school. If there are sufficient classrooms available, then several universities could offer their courses at our high school each teaching its strengths. When the statewide communication system is completed to our area then our higher education programs would be greatly expanded ex-panded if we have adequate facilities. Vocational oriented students can and should have the opportunity to learn a certified vocational skill in conjunction with the high school. Fewer students would have problems or fail to earn a diploma if they had available in conjunction conjunc-tion with high school, vocational courses of interest to them and applicable to the kind of work they desired to pursue. If these programs are located at sites away from the high school, then the daily schedule is disrupted, transportation is ' required, or students are forced to wait . a couple of years till after high school or travel again to evening classes instead of studying. High school kids with cars cause themselves many problems. May I say that school buses work real well for getting a kid an education and I also like them because the state pays most of their expenses. It should be noted that a strong diversified high school program would not detract from a proposed junior college, but would better prepare students for it. The 1.918 people who voted against this school certainly give a mandate to spend that money wisely and benefit everyone rather than a few. The $17 million is a very large sum to be working with and several agents and design consultants stand to make considerable from it. This is just fine if we get the quality of services ser-vices from them that they are capable of rather than just rushing through the project and having inferior facilities to what we could have had. It would appear that the following criteria should be used in selecting a site rather than its location: A. Size, the bigger the better, at least 50 acres considering the following: 1. The present Uintah High School uses about 45 acres of facilities and we need a new one because that isn't big enough. 2. Union High School facilities occupy 40 acres. 3. Space should be provided for future expansion and options. Undoubtedly we will need more classrooms, new programs, pro-grams, expanded shop and FFA area etc. 4. Vocational and higher education programs pro-grams can be jointly used with the high school but still it requires more classrooms, offices and space. 5. Community multiple use was advertised adver-tised as benefit of their new complex, and we certainly need the large auditorium and gymnasiums and supporting facilities, but they all take more space. 6. In order to have quality athletic facilities for all programs it takes considerable con-siderable area. 7. Traffic handling and parking require considerable area to avoid impacts to surrounding areas. 8. It is desirable to have facilities for religious instruction of all denominations adjacent to the school and if a small landlocked site is selected, it could be very expensive to obtain these adjacent facilities. 9. Inadequate planning of the core facility or no available room for organized organiz-ed growth would prematurely force building a new school or relocating outlying outly-ing students to less desirable facilities. B. Cost to the taxpayers and benefits gained should also be considered. Two very adequate sites were offered to the board. One was completely free and also included land for county parks and seminaries. The other was in exchange ex-change for the Ashley Creek property. Neither had the ground water or flooding problems of the original site. But since one was in Maeser and the other in Davis, some of the board members did not even seriously consider them. It could be noted that all sites have some advantages and disadvantages and consultants con-sultants and emphasize or ignore various items to make investigations and reports favor the preconceived desire of their employers. Additional data which could be considered con-sidered in site selection. 1. The 10 precincts in the Vernal area did not carry the election but provided only 722 of the 1,954 votes cast for the bond approval. It was to be a new school for everyone, not a second school for central cen-tral areas only. 2. Unexpectedly the margin of victory came from Tridell precinct. Maybe they should get some consideration for making mak-ing the new school possible. Personally, I don't care where it is built, very few students walk to high school anyway and a few miles one way or the other in Ashley Valley won't make much difference. But I am worried that (he one serious and costly mistake (to education as well as the taxpayers) would be to put it on too small of a site. I seriously suggest that when the school is built that a permanent plaque be installed with the names of the present pre-sent school board members on it. I hope that they will make good decisions and wisely direct the planning and creation of this needed education facility. May they always be personally remcmlx'red for their actions in this responsibility and may time prove out the wisdom of their decisions. KEII) N. JOHNSON, P.E. |