Pine Street Elementary, high school pool days numbered

Plans for building or updating Wayland Union school district facilities are getting more into focus after the second community forum Monday night with about three dozen citizens in attendance.

It’s looking more than likely that Pine Street elementary, now celebrating its 75th year, will be sold or taken down and the school district will ask residents to approve a bond issue next May to pay for building a new elementary school , for a new pool to replace the 42-year-old facility, new tennis courts and install artifical turf in the football stadium.

Danny Paster, Steve Jerkenberg and Steve Hoeksema, representing architects and engineers Tower Pinkster laid out a number of options for groups to consider. They insisted that a community survey still needs to be done to determine just what school district residents will support.

It appears that Pine Street, which served as the high school and middle school in days gone by, will be sold or closed because it is aging. Officials said it would cost about $6.9 million to refurbish the old school, which is about half as much as building a new one.

The need for more room in elementary schools is growing more apparent because Dorr Elementary is bulging at the seams and growth in student population is being projected for the next five years.

Superintendent Norm Taylor said he has been told Dorr is already up 18 students over a year ago.

“I’m nervous,” he said. “Where do we put two more classrooms full of students into Dorr when Hunter’s Glen (in Moline) may have as many as 100 new (housing) units?”

The groups at the forum favored two of four proposed scenarios for elementaries, one for a new K-5 building to be built in Wayland to take some students from Dorr and another for a district-wide building for all fourth- and fifth-graders.

It’s almost unanimous now for a proposal to move all sixth-graders to join the current junior high and transform it into a middle school. This would enable sixth-graders to participate in band, orchestra and individual sports at the junior high level.

Referred to as Scenario B, the plan to build the fourth and fifth grade school, add a sixth grade wing to the junior high, replace the tennis courts, install synthetic turf at the stadium and build a new pool would cost an estimated $53.4 million.

Referred to as Scenario C, the plan to build a K-5 school, add a sixth grade wing to the junior high, do the tennis courts and make the pool issue on the ballot would cost an estimated $48.1 million.

The cost of a new pool has been pegged at $15 million.

Taylor said, “The pool may last another couple of years but its days are numbered… how many, I don’t know.”

He said the time will come fairly soon when it will be unusable.

Tower Pinkster reps said the new pool, with eight lanes, would be installed near the current facility, which could be renovated into a place for auto shop, the fitness center or for expanding band and orchestra programs.

Yet another proposal considered was using the football stadium for soccer, but engineers said it would have to be a very narrow field, and not satisfactory.

There is still time for the public to provide more input into the process, which was launched more than a year ago. There may be one more community forum in October and a survey will be done soon.

School officials said they hope to have everything lined up by February for the campaign for a bond.

PHOTO: Small groups gathered during the community forum to come up with preferences on what they’d like to see in a May 2017 bond issue for building and updating facilities.