Auburn High School, Terminal Park Elementary and Olympic Middle School are all past the half-century mark, showing their age, and would be more costly to fix than to tear down and build anew.
Now district officials say the time has come to deal with the problem, ensuring that all students in the area get the same educational opportunities regardless of the buildings in which they are being taught.
“We don’t want old schools, new schools, rich schools, poor schools,” Auburn School District Superintendent Kip Herren told members of the Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors on Tuesday afternoon. “We really need our kids to know and teachers to have the same tools to make a difference for all our kids.”
“We want to bring more parity to all schools,” said School Board President Janice Nelson.
On March 10, the district will ask voters to support Proposition 1, a $239 million bond that would pay for the replacement of the three schools over the next 10 years and for improvements to other aging facilities.
Proposition 2, titled “Auburn School District School District Capital Improvements Levy,” authorizes the district to levy an additional tax, providing for a total of $46.4 million for the district’s capital projects fund for facilities improvements and equipment for six years.
Beginning in 2010, it would be collected in the school years from 2010-2011 through 2015 to 2016 and fund improvements at 18 schools and six support facilities. Each year of the levy would replace the previous year’s amount
The capital improvement levy requires a 50-percent majority plus one to pass, but the bond still requires a supermajority of 60 percent. It will be an all-mail bond and levy election.
Herren acknowledged that the timing might be a bit awkward, given the state of the economy.
“One person told me, ‘You are awfully audacious,’ and another said I was actually bodacious for putting this out in this economic environment,” Herren said.
Herren said the new 1,800-student Auburn High School would be built on East Main in the area where the old high school — later the Annex — once stood. The 59-year-old school on 4th Street would be razed, but the Performing Arts Center and the automotive technology building would remain.
Olympic Middle School would be replaced at its current location with an 800-student facility, with construction starting in 2012 and opening day set for 2014. Terminal Park Elementary would be replaced at its present location with a 550-student school. Construction would begin in 2011 with the building opening in the fall of 2012.
The combined school tax rate is projected to be $5.05 per $1,000 of assessed property value. Herren said this rate includes existing school taxes, new school improvement construction bonds and the new capital levy. He said the projected school tax rate will remain level with the passage of the bond and levy.
Ron Copple, a member of the Chamber’s board of directors and a West Hill resident, suggested the district might have a problem pitching the idea to residents of the recently annexed Lea Hill and West Hill areas.
“One of the promotions that brought them into annexation was no new taxes. What people need to understand is this is not new taxes, this is an existing tax being carried out. But because they have received new taxes from the City, there is going to be a little guarded optimism about taking care of something like this,” Copple said.
“The capital levy takes care of needs right now,” Herren said. “That’s six years of collecting the money. We’ve got to go through and take care of roofs and heating systems and infrastructure. It’s basic 101. If we don’t get it through a capital levy, we’ve got to spend the allocation of basic education.”
Since the middle 1980s, the school district has engaged in a capital facilities program to meet the needs of a growing student population and to modernize facilities to ensure that kids at every building get the same opportunities.
The 2004-05 Citizens Ad Hoc Committee recommended the district conduct a detailed, thorough review of all facilities and assess them against program and facility component standards. The district’s Steering Committee for the Facilities Master Plan reviewed this data, including cost estimates, in September and October of 2008. Committee members then decided which of the more than 2,700 items should be recommended to the school board for consideration for future bonds and capital levies.
“It has always been in the forefront of the Auburn School District to keep the buildings in great shape and bring them up to code. Now we are to the point where some of the buildings are pretty old,” Nelson said.
Among the facility improvement recommendations are the following:
• Provide improvements to facilities that are needed during the next 10 years and are essential for the support of educational programs, school district services, building operations and building integrity.
• Do not provide improvements at the newer schools, Arthur Jacobsen Elementary, Lakeland Hills Elementary and Auburn Mountainview
• Provide limited improvements at facilities recommended for replacement
• Carefully consider the costs and benefits of improvements at facilities not recommended for replacement, but that will exceed their economic life span in about 10 years, including Alpac, Evergreen Heights and Gildo Rey Elementary schools, Cascade Middle School, and the district’s administration building.
