The Elko County School Board approved the floor plans for the new West Wendover Elementary School in Wednesday meeting.
The approval is the last step before construction on the new school begins this summer.
The new elementary is part of a $28.5 million project that also includes a retro fit of the current elementary school into a middle school.
The school board put the project at the top of the “pay as you go” agenda in last week’s meeting which means construction on the new school could start in 2014 and be completed in 2015.
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.
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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.
While the expansion plan is said to solve the overcrowding issue at the elementary it has not escaped criticism especially for the retrofit to the middle school.
“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.” wrote one anonymous parent in a letter published last month, “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.”
Those objections are simply not true Zander said and added that the new middle school would have a new full sized gym as part of the project.
“Anyone who has any question or criticism of the project can call me directly at 1-775-738-5196,” he added. “Or they can e-mail me : jzander@ecsdnv.net. We are not trying to put anything over anyone and even though some might not believe this West Wendover is not being short changed by Elko.”
“The plan we have adopted addresses the single most pressing problem in West Wendover– the shortage of space at the elementary school,” Zander said. “The is where the bottleneck is and has been for quite some time.”
