PORT ANGELES — A committee studying Port Angeles school facilities has recommended that the Port Angeles School District try again to pass a bond — but lower its sights.
Rather than attempting to replace Port Angeles High School, the district should aim to fund construction of only a new science and technology building to replace the school’s 100 and 900 buildings and make site improvements, Steve Methner, one of the 15 members of the committee, told the Port Angeles School Board on Thursday night.
An alternative would be to replace only the 100 building, resulting in about 16,000 fewer square feet of new construction and reducing the size of a bond request, Methner said.
Defeated in 2015
A proposed $98.25 million bond to replace most of the high school was defeated in February 2015 with 50.32 percent approval, far short of the 60 percent supermajority needed for passage.
“We purposely did not set an amount on here because we don’t really know what the price tag would be until we get some expert input on that,” he said.
“It would be substantially less than the prior bond measure.”
Methner said it would be difficult to hold an election this year.
“It would probably be sometime next year,” he said.
Aside from asking about recommended cost, School Board members did not discuss the proposal.
Recommendations
Stevens Middle School could be updated to accommodate moving all district sixth grade classes there, Methner said.
That would involve expanding the cafeteria, kitchen, music and gym areas and adding a permanent classroom building.
The committee also explored the option of allocating about $500,000 to prevent critical systems failures at Hamilton and Franklin elementaries during phase one of the long-term plan, Methner said.
That money could come from the district’s capital projects budget over several years, or from a bond measure, Methner said.
Recommendations
In light of the failure of the district’s 2015 bond measure, Methner said, the committee sought to balance an urgent need for facilities at the high school with a short remaining service life of Hamilton and Franklin elementary schools, and to do so in a way that was both supportable and predictable for taxpayers.
While the 2015 bond measure was within 0.4 percent of a simple majority, “the committee feels it is unlikely that a bond measure of the same size will achieve supermajority soon enough to meet the educational needs of our children,” Methner said.
However, with other campuses beyond the high school in need of attention in coming years, the committee recommended “a smaller but clearly defined effort going forward,” Methner said.
The committee — made up of community, school administration, parent and School Board representatives — was formed to look at all school facilities and provide recommendations to meet the needs of students for the next 20 years or more.
Reviewed current state
The committee reviewed the current state of district facilities, capital facilities committee recommendations from 2007 and 2014-15 and architectural proposals from 2007 and 2014, Methner said.
The committee had limited time and no budget, so no experts were hired, he said.
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.