The Garden City Telegram
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Group discusses new high school
Published 8/10/2007 in News : Education By Emily Behlmann
Replacing Garden City High School with a brand new building, equipped with everything school district staff think is necessary, would be almost an ideal solution to overcrowding worries at GCHS, said members of a study group Thursday night.
However, the funds and the public votes to pay that price through a bond issue might be too difficult to obtain, they said.
A group of about 12 USD 457 staff, students and community members discussed building a new high school in a new location as part of a series of 10 meetings. Each examines a possible solution to what administrators have said is an overcrowded high school with inadequate science labs, music rooms, gymnasiums, locker rooms, practice athletic fields and other facilities.
After the meetings, these sub-committees will meet as a larger study group to report their findings, and the group will choose an option to recommend to the Board of Education, which, ultimately, would be responsible for approving a plan.
At Thursday's meeting, study group co-chairwoman Jean Clifford said a new high school would need to exceed the current facility's 101 classrooms because among the group's goals are to eliminate the 11 mobile classrooms housed in seven trailers that were supposed to be temporary, and to give classrooms to the 14 traveling teachers who carry their class materials on carts.
Achieving both objectives could help the school district recruit and retain teachers, Principal James Mireles said. Those who visit are interested in the appearance of the building and, especially, whether they will receive their own classroom, he said.
The science labs also are in need of improvement, Superintendent Rick Atha said, and the school needs more than the four it has now because classes share and don't always have the opportunity to do labs.
Rosio Ibarra, a 2007 GCHS graduate who is starting work at Garden City Community College toward a pre-medicine major, agreed.
"I love to do science, but it's hard to do labs here," she said.
Overcrowded facilities for programs like music and family and consumer science also need to be expanded, administrators said, along with the configuration of the building, which has been expanded eight times, not including unattached buildings. The facility now has 56 doors, which Associate Superintendent Bill Weatherly said is a security risk, since it's almost impossible for staff to monitor all at once.
Weatherly also would like to improve athletic facilities. The current high school has one competition gym, where students have to sit on the floor for all to fit at the same time; one practice gym; one practice field and Memorial Stadium.
Ideally, a high school would have six more locker rooms, at least one more gym, and all activity facilities -- like baseball, softball and soccer fields -- on one campus, so students wouldn't have to drive to the facilities.
Improving traffic was one of the arguments group members mentioned in favor of a new high school because of athletics and because cafeterias could be large enough to accommodate all of the roughly 2,000 students, which study group co-chairman Craig Wheeler said would be safer. Lunch has been open for all, though now that GCHS's $1,500,000 courtyard facility is complete, freshmen will be required to stay on campus during lunch.
"It literally is a race," Wheeler said of the way students leave campus for the 34-minute lunch. "There's no time to wait at a stop sign or stop light any longer than you have to."
However, group members said, GCHS currently is centrally located, and a new facility probably would need to be built on the outskirts of town to obtain the amount of land necessary. That could mean more travel, and more transportation costs for the school district.
That land would have a price tag, too, not to mention the cost of a new building.
Atha said the discussions on price couldn't come until planners knew exactly what would go in a facility. The group knows building a new high school for more than 2,000 would be more expensive than, for example, building a second high school for 1,000 or 1,500, he said, but they can't get specifics unless they hire an architect to make estimates on their top choices.
Operational expenses might not change much, said Stewart Nelson, an architect with Gibson, Mancini, Carmichael & Nelson. The building probably would be larger, but also more efficient than the original 1954 structure, he said.
Convincing the community to approve that bond issue would be the challenge for supporters, though, especially since voters rejected proposals in 1998 and 2000. Each would have built a second high school in Garden City, the first with a $30 million bond and the second with $33 million.
Atha said it would be "critical to have a tremendous plan" for what to do with the current high school facility, especially since it contains a lot of history for many in the community. Suggestions mentioned included opening the building to more community activities or using it as a middle school, alternative high school or vocational building.
Study group member Charlie Robinson said he thinks that if voters approved a new facility, it would improve community pride.
"Some of the most important things people consider when moving are schooling and health care," he said. "The fact that the high school might be hampered in its facility -- what does that do for the community?"
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