Plans for West Bonner ride on bond
PRIEST RIVER, Idaho – When a new principal took over Priest River Junior High School several years ago, one of the first things he did was remove photos of the senior classes that graduated when it was still a high school in the 1940s and ‘50s.
“He almost hung himself on that one,” current Principal Gary Go said with a laugh. The pictures were put back up within a matter of days after word got out.
“This school has so much tradition here in the community,” said Michael McGuire, superintendent of the West Bonner School District. “It’s an icon.”
It’s an icon that will stay intact, even as the district asks voters Tuesday to approve a $23 million bond, to be paid back over 20 years. About $11 million would be used to remodel the junior high school, built in 1940.
At the request of community members, the building will stay. It’s the inside that will go.
“It will look like a brand-new 1940 building,” McGuire said of the proposed renovation.
The rest of the money would pay for:
“More classrooms and a new gymnasium at the high school
“An elementary school in Blanchard that would give the community its first school and relieve overcrowding at Priest River Elementary School
“A new cafeteria at Priest River Elementary School.
School officials say the construction would eliminate the need for portable classrooms at all schools.
If approved, the school bond would be the first in Bonner County since 1952. The countywide school district split into the West Bonner and Lake Pend Oreille districts in 1999.
In the West Bonner district, which serves 1,589 students in the Priest River, Oldtown and Blanchard areas, school officials hope several years of discussion about the need for better school facilities will help the proposal get the two-thirds yes votes it needs to pass. Community forums and town hall meetings began about two years ago to discuss the state of district schools, particularly Priest River Junior High School. The building has had no renovations or additions in its nearly 70-year life, and officials consider it woefully inadequate.
“This is not a quality place for kids,” McGuire said.
The three-story building lacks elevators and does not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The boy’s bathroom consists of a long urinal trough with no stalls. Teachers must line up alongside students or use a second-floor custodian’s room with a toilet, when it isn’t being used as a reading remediation space.
The tiny teacher’s lounge and copying room doubles as the technology utilities room, with wall dividers separating tables from wire boxes. The walls weren’t wired for computers, so the school staff drills holes and runs the wires through.
“Here, we’re at the mercy and needs of architecture and the needs of 1940,” McGuire said.
Just replacing the school’s boiler – it “drinks fuel,” McGuire said – could save thousands of dollars. It costs more than $20,000 to heat the high school for one year, but it costs that much to heat the junior high for just one winter month.
The $11.2 million renovation is nearly twice the cost of building an elementary school in Blanchard, the second-biggest project on the district’s wish list. Schoolchildren there ride the bus about 45 minutes each way to Priest River Elementary School, which is bursting with more than 600 students.
Building a 200-student capacity school in Blanchard would solve overcrowding at the Priest River school and finally provide the Blanchard community with a school of its own, said Ken Eldore, director of facilities. About 20 students from the Blanchard area pay tuition to the Lakeland School District to attend Spirit Lake schools, which are much closer than the Priest River schools.
The Stoneridge Resort has offered free land for the elementary school site, but the offer will be off the table if it isn’t accepted this year, McGuire said.
The bond also would pay for a $2.1 million facelift to Priest River Elementary School. The money would give the school a cafeteria and move the administrative area to the front, allowing for better security, the district said.
Students now eat in a large classroom-sized room in six shifts, about 100 per shift. The bond also aims to increase security by reducing access to the building. Open breezeways would be enclosed and entrances would be more visible, Principal Kendra McMillan said.
The rest of the money would go to a music room and more classrooms and parking at the high school, as well as a new gym. The classrooms and parking would get $1.6 million, and $1.5 million would pay for an auxiliary gym to help with community demand for the high school’s only gym.
The remaining $900,000 would pay for additional costs and go to the district’s reserve fund.