Hearing set on $56 million for Moon Area construction
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Moon Area residents will get a chance soon to address the school board's plan to borrow $56 million to complete the new high school and convert the existing high school into a middle school.
President Mark Scappe said at Monday's school board meeting that a public hearing on the borrowing plan would probably be held at 6 p.m. Sept. 28, though the date and time are not yet confirmed. The board's regular workshop meeting is at 7 p.m. that night.
The borrowing would raise the total bill for the project to $121.4 million -- $76.8 million for the new high school and $44.6 million for the middle school conversion.
For the money, the district will get a three-story, tan-and-crimson high school with a collegiate look, extensive glass, a 1,200-seat gymnasium, a state-of-the-art auditorium, built-in interactive technology and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. That building is under construction behind the middle school, and is slated to open in December 2010.
Conversion work on the current high school will, if things proceed as planned, begin with exterior work next summer, then shift to interior work when classes move to the new high school and the building is empty. That work is slated to be complete in the summer of 2012; the current middle school will then be razed and the land used for parking and playing fields.
The project has been a focal point for controversy in Moon and Crescent over the last half-decade. It was first planned in 2004, but was derailed when voters in 2005 elected an anti-building school board majority. That group pulled the plug and instead developed plans to renovate the high school and build a new middle school.
But voters in 2007 reversed course, electing enough supporters of the original plan to reinstate that majority. That group, immediately after taking office, approved a plan to build a new high school based on the 2005 renovation drawings, and is now following through on plans to renovate the current high school for use as a middle school.
Another sore point for some is the plan to move fifth grade to the middle school.
"I don't believe it's in the best interests of the students at Moon," board member Mark Limbruner said.
His concern, echoed by a number of others, is that fifth-graders, who are generally 10 years old at the beginning of school, are young to be mixing with 13-year-old eighth-graders.
Board member Mark Ulven, however, noted that age-mixing goes both ways. "We've had more problems with fifth-graders interacting with third-graders, doing and saying inappropriate things, than we've had between sixth-graders and eighth-graders," he said.
He and others also noted that unless fifth grade moves to the middle school, the district will not be able to fulfill its goal of offering full-day kindergarten in its elementary schools.
First Published September 17, 2009 5:38 am
