YHS construction priorities adopted

Board won’t borrow, so pool left unfunded

yosemite high school district report

After several months of consideration and comments from a number of staff and community residents, the Yosemite Joint Union High School District Board of Trustees approved a construction priority list at its meeting last week.

The district will not borrow any money at this time for the project, leaving some items unfunded.

“Considering the financial condition of the state and nation, the board felt it was prudent not to borrow money at this time,” says District Superintendent Bill McCabe. “With the sagging economy and current state of affairs, that decision was correct,” he said. “The beauty of this decision is that it does not preclude us from borrowing in the future.”

The two unfunded items on the construction list are the swimming pool and the classroom complex.

“The district is guaranteed $1.185 million from the state when a new state bond measure passes,” Mr. McCabe explains. “When those funds become available, we will use them to build the classroom complex.”

There will be six additional classrooms built during this phase of construction. There will be two new classrooms built for the music program and there will be three new classrooms put in Building 300 when it is remodeled.

The first item on the priority list is to remodel Building 700, which is now the music and theatre arts classroom complex. The entire building will be converted to a performing arts center that will seat in excess of 300 people. New band and chorus classrooms will be built close to the center.

Originally, the district had planned to build a new performing arts center, but had to delay that for now because of state funding issues.

Building 300 will be remodeled. This had been a small cafeteria area and three classrooms. The cafeteria area will be remodeled into three additional classrooms.

The roof on the Harry Baker Gymnasium will be repaired; a public address system will be installed; improvements will be made at the agriculture farm, including fencing and lighting; basketball hoops will be installed in the new cafeteria/multi-purpose room; storage will be built; wiring will be upgraded; a new well will be drilled; awnings will be installed between the gymnasium and multi-purpose room; the original buildings will all be re-roofed on a building-by- building basis; additional parking, water and sewer lines will be added; sports fields will be upgraded and expanded; the tennis courts will be resurfaced and five portable classrooms will be added, including two for the alternative education schools.

Mr. McCabe explains that these projects will be completed over a two-year period, during which time he anticipates about $400,000 in developer fees will be collected that can be used to help fund the projects.

The voters in the YJUHSD approved an $11.76 million bond in 1998; the state has matched this amount with $3 million. To date, about $12 million has been spent on construction, leaving $2.7 million yet to be spent.

“We are striving to use the money to its greatest potential to serve the students and the community,” Mr. McCabe says.

The district staff members were surveyed as to their priorities, and a number of local community groups and individuals were surveyed. In those surveys, remodeling the two remaining open-space classrooms (700 and 300) was the top priority, followed by new classrooms, re-roofing the original buildings and building a swimming complex.

“Without borrowing funds, we could not build the classroom complex and the swimming pool,” Mr. McCabe explains. “These are projects we would still like very much to complete.”

The money the state owes the district will not be available unless and until a new state bond measure is passed. Mr. McCabe says November 2002 is the earliest that will be on the ballot, but probably not until 2003.

At this time, the state has an unfunded list that totals $800 million; YHS is about mid-range on the list.

“We will continue to explore other avenues of funding for our projects,” Mr. McCabe says, “we would like very much to complete everything we had promised the voters during the bond campaign.”