Cd'A school trustees debate future of Hayden Lake school

COEUR d'ALENE — School trustees in Coeur d’Alene aren’t ready to let go of the currently unused Hayden Lake Elementary School.

"We have to be really careful here folks," said Trustee Dave Eubanks, during Monday’s school board meeting. "I think we need to hang on to Hayden Lake Elementary School as a bird in the hand."

Selling the property was part of a Long Range Planning Committee proposal to address population growth in the northwest section of the district by building new schools and upgrading some existing facilities. The committee recommended securing financing for the plan by selling a 10-acre district-owned property on Thomas Lane in Coeur d'Alene and putting a $25 million bond levy before voters in August.

However, the trustees were overwhelmingly opposed to the notion of presenting a bond to voters, with some commenting that the next available date for a bond vote — March 2017 — would also be too soon.

Jon Froderberg, who heads the volunteer committee, told the board that the group carefully considered the condition of Hayden Lake Elementary — both its location and what it would take to make it a contemporary facility — when creating the proposal. The campus, he added, is located east of U.S. Highway 95, which is a distance from where the district is experiencing the most growth.

"It would take a great deal of funding to bring the facility up to code and, even if it were completely up to code, I don't know that it would be a facility that would align with how we want to present education to the kids," Froderberg said.

When asked by Board Chair Christa Hazel if building codes had changed substantially since students were housed at the facility last year, Finance and Operations Director Brian Wallace responded by stating the campus has accessibility issues. Those issues were present last year, he added, but were grandfathered in and would not be allowed under current Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, which would kick in if any large-scale upgrades were to take place.

Casey Morrisroe, vice chair of the board and liaison to the committee, told his fellow trustees the group looked at making Hayden into a fully-functioning elementary school. Cost estimates for such a project, he added, ranged from $6.5 to $7 million.

"The site just didn't fit well to do that," Morrisroe said. "It certainly could be that, but I think the feeling of the committee was that it wasn't the best use of those funds."

Trustee Tom Hearn countered by asserting there is a difference between upgrading the campus to the specifications for which the board has seen proposals and using the campus for several years to "deal with crowding situations until we're able to build a new school in the northwest section of the community."

During the discussion, Eubanks asked if re-opening the Kinder Center on the Hayden Lake Elementary campus, and pulling kindergarten classes from crowded schools, would be a temporary solution.

Superintendent Matt Handelman told the board that, although the Kinder Center was opened five years ago to relieve overcrowding in schools, there were still large schools in the district. It was eventually disbanded, he added, because the district needed to use the facility to house elementary students while Winton Elementary School was being constructed.

"I can't say that there were tears in the community about the Kinder Center closing," Handelman said. "(But) I agree completely with the sentiment that it would be crazy for us to sell Hayden Lake Elementary School before we had another site secured and a bond."

At the conclusion of the discussion, trustees directed the committee to continue to hold meetings and keep every option on the table as they proceed with the creation of proposals. In addition, the board directed the committee and district officials to create proposals for how Hayden Lake Elementary School could be used to alleviate overcrowding in the district over the next few years.

"Hayden Lake Elementary has come to the district's rescue a couple times, hasn't it?" Eubanks asked. "I think we need to hang on to it until we absolutely have no use for it whatsoever and this is another time where we need to consider putting some of our students back in that school."