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Show Iron County School Board Approves Plans for South Elementary Building The Iron County Board of Education this week approved ap-proved plans for a new el mentary school building, and issued is-sued a call for bids on the project, and in addition spent much time in the consideration of building needs in the county over the next few years and means of financing such construction. The board approved final plans for a new elementary elemen-tary school building to be erected in the southwest portion por-tion of Cedar City, and have asked for bids on the structure. struc-ture. The bids will be opened on Feb. 7, and construction should be started within about 10 days of awarding of contract on the building. The new building, to cost about $700,00, will Include 15 class rooms, two of which will be for kindergarten purposes; a library, li-brary, multi-purpose room, lunch room with kirnen, draft room, audio-visual room, and administrative adminis-trative section, Including princi-and princi-and nurse's room. Each classrom will have an office, a feature not provided in most of the present pres-ent schools, and one that has been found extremely desirable. A call for bids on this new modern school is published on another page of this issue of the Iron County Record. Funds Available Funds for this new elementary school are currently on hand and it will be completely paid for by the time it is occupied. Funds ?.re l5"? availahle. or will be during the course of construction, construc-tion, for a new elementary school In Parowan, a new administration administra-tion building In Cedar City, and an addition to the Parowan High School after the elemen'ary school is completed. During the next five years funds will become be-come available for a badly needed need-ed addition to the- Cedar East Elementary School building, and a probably needed addition to the North Elementary. Facility Problem From that point on, however, the board of education Is faced with some perplexing problems, particularly with planning for badly needed facilities at the Cedar Ce-dar Ci'y High School, correla'-lng correla'-lng these needs with a rapidly expanding Junior high school. When the South Elementary Is completed the present West Elementary Ele-mentary studen's will atend the other three elementary schools in the city and the present fecilities u'llized by the Junior or senior high school or both. However, even this will do little to solve the facility problem of the Junior Jun-ior and senior high schools. New gymnasium and shop facilities must be provided soon at the high school, which would Involve expenditures for remodeling and additions, which, even then would only temporarily solve the facility problem. In addition it would result in even greater conges'ion of the campus, which at the present time is entirely inadequate in view of present standards of school campuses. I Expand or Divide? j Thus the board of education is faced with a double problem, that of financing as well as decisions de-cisions as to whether or not to attempt to expand the present Junior and senior high school plants and campus or whether to separate the two, developing a completely new high school plant and utilizing the present plant for Junior high school only If the lat'er plan Is adopted, which is generally considered as most advisable and most ideal, a financial problem arise If th? present plant is expanded and additional time is taken to un-jdertake un-jdertake such expansion, a "pay as you go" program could be followed. But It would cause a serious crowding of the campus and not make for a satisfactory solution of the housing problem. Bonding Question Should a complete new plar.t be decided upon, it would become be-come necessary to bond in order to meet the cost. However, bonding bond-ing would make it possible 'o provide the needed facilities in the very near future, instead of continuing with inadequate faci!-i'ies faci!-i'ies for a number of years. Also the new plant idea would set the school pattern for many years to come, and avoid constant chanR-es, chanR-es, remodeling and expansion. The board members feel that these lat'er questions should be decided by public opinion and as a result plan to take the question before the public, with tne first public hearing to be held at a meeting of the Coordinating Coun In February. Date and place will be announced in the near future. In addition to building study and problems the board spent (Continued on Back Page) SCHOOL BOARD ! (Continued from First Page) considerable time at Its meeting Monday on other school district business. A review of the audit made by Thomas Christiansen for the Southern Utah Accounting Service, Ser-vice, was undertaken. The audit report indicated that the district accounts are in excellent condition. condi-tion. Invest in Bonds A hearing was held to consider consid-er the transfer of reserve building build-ing funds to a future building fund, in order that the money may be invested in bonds. Following Fol-lowing the hearing the transfer was approved and the money will be invested at a good rate of Interest which will add a considerable con-siderable amount to the building fund. j Board members and school ad-minis'rators ad-minis'rators will visit a new administration ad-ministration building in Ogden during the next few weeks to help with a study of plans for a new administration building to be erected in Cedar City. The board au'horlzed Superintendent Super-intendent Ianthus Wrlgh to negotiate ne-gotiate for additional land at tho new elementary school site In Parowan. If 'he land can be acquired ac-quired and at a reasonable cost it will be added to the school campus. The board approved participation participa-tion in a School Board Workshop to be sponsored by the Utani School Board Association under, the supervision of the Brieham Young University Educational dedartmenL J l The board also approved rec- ommendatlons by the State! Board of Education that the mln. imum number of school days each year be set at 177 days. This will have li'tle effect on 'he local district, however, since! It has main'ained a school day year of from 175 to 180 days. A decision was reached to discontinue dis-continue the practice of allowing GED tests toward graduation from high school. The GED tests "General Adminjs'rtion Development," Develop-ment," have been given to men In military service and credit allowed al-lowed toward graduation. This will not be done in the future. j As a step toward a' national uniform accoun'ing system for schools, the board approved bonding bond-ing all school officials who handle han-dle school monies in any capacity. |
