Plans to redraw West Wendover’s school are a disaster in the making according one source identified as “1 Pissed Off Parent”.
According to the source the plan will ultimately short change West Wendover students while solving little of the over crowding problem.
The $28.5 million project includes a new elementary school in West Wendover and a retrofit of the current school to serve as a junior high. The school is expected to house 750 students in grades first through fifth. The current elementary building will be renovated into a sixth- through eighth-grade middle school.
Pay-as-you-go school tax revenue through the end of fiscal year 2013 is estimated at just over $39 million, according to the five-year plan.
The need for a middle school in West Wendover was acknowledged almost since the West Wendover Jr/Sr high school opened in 1996.
However the project was sidelined in the late 1990’s when the price of gold collapsed and tax revenues in Elko County subsequently plunged. Talk of the new middle began again in the mid 2000’s but again the economy turned sour in the Great Recession and all building projects were put on indefinite hold.
In the meantime West wendover made due with stopped gap temporary trailers that now house about 50 percent of its elementary students.
With the price of gold above the $1,500 an ounce mark for over two years and the local economy humming once again the school district is again addressing the issue.
In addition to solving overcrowding problems a middle school also prevents sometimes harmful interaction between junior and senior high students, at least according to the school board.
Those assurances however are not true according to the source:
The story goes like this; a rumor starts to circulate that Elko County School District wants to build a new school in West Wendover, well good golly it’s about time. Of course everyone has an opinion on what kind of school this town needs. Some would like an elementary so that our kids didn’t have to attend school in a trailer. Others would like to see a middle school so that our young teenage children didn’t have to attend school with the older kids on the verge of adulthood. Something about sending your 12 year old seventh grade daughter to school with the 18 year old senior boy down the street just made a few people uncomfortable. Of course others would like to see a new high school built, so maybe this time it could be done right, you know like the high schools in Elko and Spring Creek.
Now along with the rumor of a new school was the little secret that the important folks in the big town of Elko had already made up their mind about what type of school the little old town of West Wendover needed. Why they were going to build us a brand new elementary. Now as the story goes, if you were to ask any one from the district about what type of school they planned on building they would tell you that they hadn’t made that decision yet. As a matter of fact they wanted to put together a “committee” made up of teachers, parents and community leaders from West Wendover. This committee would listen to the wants and needs of the people in the community and would then present to the district what the community of West Wendover felt it needed most.
Now it has come to my attention during a school board meeting held in March the board approved the plans for a brand new elementary and our city has also given the school district the green light to go forth with their plans of building the new school. Yet what happened to the committee? I have asked around and as of yet, I haven’t met a single teacher, parent, community member or business leader who served on any kind of task force to determine what kind of school West Wendover would be best served by. So far, I haven’t met anyone who even knew a school was going to be built and more importantly I haven’t met anyone who thinks building a new elementary over a new high school is even a good idea, unless of course they are an elementary teacher. So once again it looks like the big wigs from Elko came to town, looked around and then made a decision about what would be best for our kids, without even giving a second thought to what we the people who live, work and raise our children here think.
Of course all is not lost, we will get a new building for our kindergarten through fifth grade kids. We will get our 12 year old daughters out of the high school building away from the 18 year old senior boy. Oh wait, that’s not entirely true. See the master plan as it has been explained to me is that the district is now going to “retrofit” the elementary to house 6th through 8th grade. Of course the actual building isn’t big enough to house almost 300 junior high sized children, along with a full staff of core and elective teachers. So your 12 year old daughters will now get to make the trek across the parking lot a couple times a day to attend elective classes at the high school with the 18 year old senior boy. The other option is to just get rid of junior high electives like, band, art, music and computer tech classes all together. Of course the kids should be able to have their P.E. classes in the elementary gym. Not sure how many junior high sized kids you can fit in the elementary gym but hey they can just go play on the monkey bars. Oh and speaking of the gym, if you have a child who is going to be in junior high, don’t plan on them getting to be able to attend any assemblies as the facility doesn’t and won’t have enough bleacher space for 300 eleven to fourteen year old kids to sit. But don’t worry, Elko knows what’s best for our kids much better than we do.
One Pissed Off Parent.
Elko County Administrators really don’t give two %#^$ about West Wendover. They don’t really do anything to address the needs of West Wendover. When they first introduced the idea back when it was Cavanaugh was superintendent it was always going to be a middle school. Then all of a sudden when it came up again under Jeff Zander’s watch it started shifting to an Elementary school. Why? Well because a former West Wendover principal who now lives in Elko proposed the idea as did others. Funny this was introduced when he no longer lived in West Wendover.
Jeff Zander when pressed initially said that they would involve all stakeholders when making the decision. Well that never happened.
Why can they get away with this? Simple, parents and constituents don’t raise a raucous, if this was Elko this would have never happened because their constituents never would of allowed it.
My suggestion is to start emailing all school board members and Mike Smith(assistant superintendant) and Jeff Zander(superintendant).
Emails provided below
Thad Ballard- tballard@ecsdnv.net
Lou Basanez- lbasanez@ecsdnv.net
Cindy Elquist- celquist@ecsdnv.net
Dean Hartwig-dhartwig@ecsdnv.net
Jon Karr- jkarr@ecsdnv.net
Annette Kerr- akerr@ecsdnv.net
Daniel Mahlberg-dmahlber@ecsdnv.net
Jeff Zander- jzander@ecsdnv.net
Mike Smith- msmith@ecsdnv.net
They should build a high school and they should build it to meet the needs of high school students. The athletic facilities should be put in by the district and not have to be funded by the coaches who wish to build successful programs. We want a real track and football stadium. There should be a practice football field and soccer fields. The baseball and softball fields should have real bleachers. There should be a snack stand to help raise money to support these programs. The gym should not be used as the lunchroom and the weight room should be larger than a closet. There should also be visiting team locker rooms so they are not dressing in the girls locker room. Our students should be treated as any other student in the district. The school should be built away from the other schools as to not congest one area and limit the teen drivers around the younger students. The Elementary can house students K-5 and the middle school can house 6-8. These facilities should be big enough to handle the amount of students. The Elementary school would still require some modifications but would better suit the student needs. Building a new high school would create an atmosphere for learning that our students would look forward to attending and obtaining. As a great leader once said….if you don’t have the time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it again. We have a chance to make it right…..please remember that our high school is more than an educational facility. It serves so many other activities for our community. Create a committee and build partnerships with the community and make the right decisions. Everyone will benefit from building a high school that will serve all stakeholders.