The Salt Lake Board of Education this afternoon is expected to OK the pursuit of $136 million in bonds to air condition all schools, rebuild others and construct two new elementaries over the next 10 years.
The May 4 bond election would increase annual property taxes on a $100,000 home by an average $8.35 over 16 years. Tax increases would begin at about a nickel and peak in 2008 at $15.62, said district spokesman Kent Hansen.While the district has already met with concerned residents and commissioned a survey to gauge public support of a bond, school board president Kathy Black believes voters will favor the project.
"I believe everyone's property values are enhanced when we have good schools in the neighborhoods," Black said. "I think that it's timely."
Indeed, students, parents and teachers for years have pressured the school board to cool classrooms, which have reached sweltering temperatures of nearly 100 degrees in the early fall and made some students and teachers sick.
The school board last school year vowed to air condition all district schools. Air conditioning since has been placed in the district's three high schools -- East, West and Highland. Nine year-round schools and district offices already had cooling systems.
"Anyone who's got a kid in school knows if a kid is sweating (he or she is) probably going to be acting up more than learning," said district spokesman Kent Hansen. "We're trying to build a learning environment."
Schools will receive air conditioning without the bond, but the project would take twice as long and cost considerably more, Black said. The district is seismically retrofitting schools under a $70 million bond passed in 1993; $30 million remains. If air-conditioning doesn't coincide with retrofits, which would be accelerated under the bond, the work will have to be done twice.
The bond also would be used to rebuild 14 elementary schools: Backman, Beacon Heights, Bonneville, Dilworth, Franklin, Highland Park, Indian Hills, Mountain View, Newman, Nibley Park, Parkview, Riley, Rose Park and Whittier. Clayton and Glendale middle schools and Hillside Intermediate also will be rebuilt, Hansen said.
Those schools should be rebuilt because costs are more than 75 percent of the cost of a new building, district officials have said.
Two new schools will be built in the southwest and northwest where student populations are booming. A new North Star Elementary also will help relieve overcrowding.
The following schools also are to receive earthquake safety upgrades and possible additions: Bennion, Edison, Emerson, Ensign, Hawthorne, Jackson, Lincoln, Lowell, Meadowlark, Rosslyn Heights, Uintah, Wasatch and Washington, which will receive a new annex building, Hansen said.
The board was expected to take the action during a brief meeting at 4 p.m. Tuesday. School board members will meet with community groups and in information sessions over the next month.
"We've taken a stand that we will be very proactive in getting out the information so people can make reasoned and reasonable decisions. Everyone benefits from this. The more we wait, the fewer benefit," Hansen said. "It's a matter of accelerating it to a reasonable state."