Post Falls hopes for new school in 2008

Post Falls School District plans to sell voters next fall on funding a new elementary school.

The district has drawn up a tentative timetable for building its fifth elementary school, with a bond levy election taking place in 2006 and the completion of the facility in time for the 2008-2009 school year.

It would cost an estimated $6 to $6.5 million and accommodate about 500 to 600 students, said Superintendent Jerry Keane on Wednesday.

The elementary schools feeling the most pressure from high enrollments are Seltice and Prairie View, Keane said, which have added two and four portable classrooms, respectively, to their campuses. A couple of fourth-graders from Seltice have been shifted to Mullan Trail Elementary, half a mile away, he added.

“It’s a short-term fix until we can find a way to accommodate them,” Keane said. “We’re doing what we can to manage until such time we can get a new school.”

The district has been averaging a growth in enrollment of 3 percent for the past 15 years, Keane said. Its latest additions are the River City Middle School in 2004 and the high school in 2000.

Two sites are being considered for the elementary school: one on Greensferry Road near the Fieldstone subdivision, in the northeastern part of the district; and one south of Poleline near the Montrose subdivision, in the western part of the district.

An advisory committee will form in the winter to discuss the proposed sites, Keane said, as well as other possible developments.

For example, the district planned to add eight classrooms to the high school in 2009, but growth may force that expansion sooner, he said.

The district is also revisiting the creation of a performing arts center at the high school, a measure that didn’t gain enough support from voters in 1998. It had 62 percent approval; 66 percent was needed. Keane still believes there’s a need for such a facility in Post Falls, which doesn’t have a venue that can hold more than a few hundred people. The additions carry a price tag of about $1.5 million each.

At their meeting Monday, district board members suggested the new elementary could be a “green building,” incorporating energy-efficient building designs and methods. That option will also be considered by the advisory committee, Keane said. The new Post Falls City Hall is slated to be a green building.

Keane said the public has supported previous building proposals because they know of the district’s needs.

“It’s not any mystery we’re increasing students,” Keane said. “We don’t ask anything other than what is really needed.”