PLEASANT GROVE -- Construction kinks have pushed back plans to open two multimillion-dollar elementary schools in rural parts of the Alpine School District until fall 2000.
Superintendent Steven C. Baugh said Tuesday that "unavoidable delays in constructions" forced the decision to stretch the completion-date time line for new buildings in Alpine and Pleasant Grove.Baugh said district officials would rather open the $6.5 million schools later than require students at Manila Elementary School to attend double sessions until construction finished in late October.
Teachers also will be able "to take possession" of the building midsummer, he said, allowing them to settle into classrooms before children arrive for the first day of school. Construction will start as soon as possible, however.
His surprise announcement came during a discussion on proposed boundary changes to lower enrollment counts at six elementary schools and create a student body for the new school, which will be built in the Strawberry Point area ofPleasant Grove.
Some 4,000 students are enrolled at the schools, most of which are overcrowded by several hundred students. Portable classrooms are used to handle the overflow.
Monies from a voter-approved $66.9 million bond and leeway will pay for new elementary schools in Orem, Pleasant Grove and Alpine. A fourth -- and final -- site has yet to be determined by Alpine officials but locations are being scouted in the northern part of the Utah County district.
Still reeling from a three-hour heated debate surrounding changes to boundaries of Orem schools, the board voiced few opinions about the proposed changes in Pleasant Grove. And surprisingly few parents attended the meeting to oppose or support possible changes.
Within minutes, the board voted to send some children who are now at Manila to the new school. Student who live near State Street and 4650 West also will switch from Cedar Ridge and Central to the new school. Boundaries for the school also canvass the area bordered by State Street, 1500 West and the Lindon-Pleasant Grove border.
The purchase of a $600,000 12-acre parcel in Alpine for the new school also was approved Tuesday. A new building for the growing town is badly needed, Baugh said.
Alpine Elementary was built to hold 350 students -- yet 850 are packed into the school. Highland Elementary, which has a 640-student capacity, has seen headcount swell to 1,100.
But Rob Bateman, mayor of not-yet-mature Eagle Mountain, is concerned that Alpine officials aren't looking at growth in the northwestern part of the district. At least 1,500 new homes will be built between Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs by 2000, he said.
"By next year we will have a population base larger than Alpine," said Bateman, a former Alpine city councilman. "If you listen to developers, there will be 3,000 new homes. We at the city are trying to be conservative."
He said the city has set aside land that may work as possible schools sites. Schools now attended by students who live in Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain are already overcrowded.
"We're concerned about it and it's something we are looking at," said board member Guy Fugal.