CEDAR CITY — After voters approved Iron County School District’s $69.5 million bond proposal in November, district officials are starting to get the ball rolling on the six capital improvement projects it entails.

However, one main question still lingers surrounding the largest and most expensive project: Should Cedar City’s East Elementary School be demolished and rebuilt, or would it be better to construct a new elementary school at a different location?

Iron County School District Board of Education member Dave Staheli has been exploring whether replacing the aging East Elementary, at an estimated cost of $32 million, is in fact the best option.

Staheli, who has taken time in the board meetings held over the past few months to address the issue at length, said it’s worth exploring possible alternatives now, before the project commences.

“For the past few months or so, actually since September, we’ve kind of had this on our plates, looking at replacement, growth and all the issues that we’ve been thinking about,” Staheli said during the board’s work meeting last week.

“I think we should first look to see what our district’s needs are,” Staheli told Cedar City News after the meeting. “That should be our first priority.”

Staheli said he and fellow board member Jeff Corry have been working independently of each other to study various possible options, enlisting the help of Superintendent Lance Hatch and other top district officials. 

Staheli shared some of his findings during his slideshow presentation last week, which included a breakdown of the pros and cons of the two main options, illustrated with maps and accompanied by demographic data and enrollment growth projections.

The board has also heard from area residents who’ve weighed in during the public comment period at recent meetings. Some commenters have asked the board to stick to the original plan and replace East Elementary on its existing property, similar to what happened when Cedar City’s North Elementary was rebuilt in 2017. Others have suggested it would be better to build the new elementary school in a different location, such as to the west or north of Cedar City, in order to better accommodate projected population growth.

Along these lines, Corry shared several photos of various housing projects under construction throughout the valley to the west of town and pointed out the lack of any such growth in the eastern section of town.

“Where is East Elementary going to grow, east of where it is right now?” Corry asked, with the implication being there is no room for more residences to be built in that direction.

The East Elementary building, located at 225 E. 70 South, is more than 70 years old. The school has a current enrollment of around 540 students, which is down from its high of 589 in 2016, according to district figures. A short video produced by Iron County School District highlighting some of the school’s infrastructure issues is available online.

Staheli noted that the actual wording of the proposal that appeared on the November ballot did not specifically mention East Elementary or any other project by name. Instead, it simply stated that the $69.5 million general obligation bond was to be used “for the purpose of paying all or a portion of the costs to acquire land; acquiring, constructing, furnishing and equipping new school facilities; (and) improving or rebuilding existing facilities.”

Nevertheless, district business administrator Todd Hess said the board and school district are still bound to the projects listed in the information that went out to voters. He added that a consensus of at least four out of the five school board members (a so-called supermajority vote) would be needed in order to make any substantial deviations from the original plan.

“The ballot language is left general for that purpose, in case the board needs to make an adjustment,” Hess said during last week’s meeting. “However, when you put out your bond priorities, your project priorities, you are bound to that without a supermajority vote.”

“When we put out our pamphlet and stated that these are the bond priorities, as a voter personally, I would take that as, here are the projects that the board is planning on doing,” Hess added.

The November ballot measure passed by a vote of 5,980 in favor to 5,115 against.

There’s still a little time for the board to make a final decision, as the construction of the new elementary school is the sixth and final bond project on the district’s timeline, with construction not expected to start until the fall of 2023.

The first phase of bond projects, scheduled to begin later this spring, involves the remodeling of three secondary schools in Cedar City to create more learning spaces, including the following:

• Adding a music wing, two science labs and four classrooms at Cedar Middle.
• Remodeling the science wing at Cedar High.
• Adding a music wing and remodeling science labs at Canyon View Middle. 

In December, the school board formally selected Hughes General Contractors for the three Phase 1 projects.

Phase 2 will then start in the spring of 2023, when ground is scheduled to be broken on a combined lunch and PE building to be located between Parowan High and Parowan Elementary, along with a new transportation and maintenance facility in Cedar City for the district’s buses and other vehicles.

The topic of the new elementary school’s location is the first action item listed on the agenda for this week’s regular meeting, scheduled for Tuesday starting at 5:30 p.m. To watch the meeting online, visit the district’s YouTube channel.

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