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Vail Building New Facilities: > District Scrambles to Accommodate an Expected 2,600 New Students <

Posted on: Thursday, 22 June 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Kimberly Matas, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

Jun. 22--Vail School District has six new facilities in various stages of development to accommodate an additional 2,600 students in the next few years.

Superintendent Calvin Baker said the district has been growing at a consistent 10 to 15 percent a year. When he joined the district 18 years ago, there were 500 students. Since then it's grown 16 times as big and now educates 8,000 students.

Projects in the works are:

--Ocotillo Ridge Elementary School, off Colossal Cave Road for students in the Rancho del Lago and Rincon Trails neighborhoods. It is expected to accommodate 600 students when opened in January.

--Senita Valley Elementary School, off Houghton and Bilby roads behind the Mesquite Ranch neighborhood, will accommodate 600 students. The district will break ground on the site in August or September, and the school will be completed in July 2007.

--A new middle school for 650 students is planned for construction next to Senita Valley Elementary. The district expects to qualify for state funding in the next year or two. Construction can start as early as 2008, with the school opening in July 2009.

--A district fine-arts auditorium at Empire High School on East Mary Ann Cleveland Way, with seating for about 500, will break ground this autumn.

--The district's planning committee is discussing building a new high school about a half mile south of the Pima County Fairgrounds. If approved by the governing board, the school is expected to be built in about three years. The school would have room for 1,400 students.

--Vail High School in the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park on South Rita Road, will move to a freestanding building in the park. Construction is expected to begin in about three years.

"We're able to keep pace (with growth), but it's a dead run to do so," said Vail Assistant Superintendent John Carruth.

The district is simultaneously planning projects and pursuing funding. However, the cost to build new facilities differs from the amount of money the state makes available for such construction, Carruth said. The state has a formula based on the number of students and projected growth to calculate the per-square-foot amount allocated for building projects.

State funding allows for about $116 to $142 per square foot, depending on grade level, said Al Flores, director of facilities for the Vail district. High schools, with science labs and other facilities, cost more to build than elementary schools, he said.

By comparison, Carruth said, most frame housing currently costs $150 to $160 per square foot to build. "There's a discrepancy that exists with that," Carruth said. "You either have to build a very stripped-down school or augment it with community dollars through bond funds."

Carruth said the district is grateful for the state funding it does get, but "with the recent construction boom and the spike in construction costs, the (state) funding mechanism hasn't kept pace with the building costs."

Last November, district voters passed a $30.8 million bond package. Of that, $25 million is earmarked for construction and renovation. Depending on how much construction costs rise, Carruth said, the bond money could pay for construction of half an elementary school, half a middle school and half a high school, with the other half being paid for with state monies.

Elizabeth Webb has two high-school-age students in the Vail School District.

"I like a lot of their concepts," she said about the diversity of schools, such as Empire High replacing textbooks with laptop computers. "Having the choices makes it worth having to wait a little bit. "I think the choices that are being offered on the high school level are very, very important," she said. "That's something I think is worth waiting for because some kids can't cope in the big school situations and others do better in the big schools."

I like a lot of their concepts. Having the choices makes it worth having to wait a little bit.

Elizabeth Webb

parent of two high-school students in Vail School District

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Arizona Daily Star

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