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Show ALPINE SCHOOL BOARD CALLS FOR BOND ELECTION The Alpine School District board members authorized the calling of a bond election, March 8th, to provide $1,450,000 to finance fi-nance a district-wide elementary school building program, Superintendent Super-intendent David R. Mitchell announced an-nounced yesterday. Following are the statements issued by the superintendent: Purpose: For building new elementary schools where most needed in the Alpine School District because be-cause of the present crowded condition. This additional building build-ing program will not mean replacement, re-placement, at the present time,' of any elementary building now in use. It will merely take care' of the increasing needs in certain areas. The amount of bonds which may be issued as determined by State Law is 4 of the assessed valuation of the Alpine School District. The present assessed valuation of this District is about $36,640,000.00. The amount of the Bond issue stated above is 4 . of the assessed valuation of the Alpine School District. Increased School Population During the period from 1936-37 to 1947-48, the enrollments in the elementary schools and high schools have increased from 4855 to 6075 students, a total increase of 1220 students or 25. Of this ' total increase of 1220 students, 851 are in the elementary grades. This is an increase of 34 in the enrollments in grades 1 to 6, inclusive, in-clusive, over a period of eleven years. Present Buildings Inadequate Surveys in 1936-37 showed our elementary buildings were inade- quate to properly house the 2498 students enrolled in elementary schools at that time. If they were inadequate at that time, you can well imagine what the situation situ-ation is now. There are no regular reg-ular nine month kindergartens in the Alpine School District, first grades in all the larger schools are on half-day sessions. Rooms are overcrowded, teachers are overloaded. At the present time, two first grade sections are being held in the basement of a church recreation hall, another grade in a room in a city hall, unsuited for school purposes; another in a school lunch room, and two second sec-ond grade sections are being held1 in what were once book rooms. These are examples of situations which exist at the present time in our District. Future Growth In October, 1947, a census was taken of pre-school children for the purpose of determining the i possible school enrollments for " the next six year period or until 1953. This survey indicates that our enrollments at that time will be not less than 7000 or an increase of 1000 over our present total enrollment of 6075. In my opinion a 7000 enrollment en-rollment for 1953 is a conservative conserva-tive estimate. If there is increasing increas-ing industrial development in this Alpine School District area the school enrollments in this District will be nearer 8000 than 7000 in 1953, because the above census figures include only those children who are already here but do not include possible increases in-creases coming from the outside of the District. Financial Ability to Support Program The Alpine School District is out of debt. Only nine other districts out of forty in the State of Utah can show as good a record. The Alpine School District, with a valuation of approximately approximate-ly $36,640,000.00, can finance this building program without imposing impos-ing a burdensome levy on the taxpayers of this District. The total levy for debt service, in order to float this bond and pay-it pay-it off in thirteen years, would be four mills to begin with and would decrease slightly each year as these serial bonds arc paid. |