The high school stays
Posted on Thursday, October 2, 2008
THAT WHIMPER you just heard
in Fayetteville was the sound of a
school board saying Uncle. The board just voted—unanimously—to build the town’s new high school on the campus of the old one. There won’t be a new school in some distant location after all. But what choice did the school board have ? The University of Arkansas, the high school’s next-door neighbor, had withdrawn its offer to buy the site. The university’s was the only serious offer for the high school property, and even it was a low-ball bid. It’s been a long, tortuous and largely unnecessary process, deciding where to build the new high school, and not a very pretty one. Back in April, a committee recommended that a new school be built on Morningside Drive in South Fayetteville. But the committee’s decision left the best option out of consideration, which was building a new school right where the old one stands.
Renovating the old high school wouldn’t be easy; it would have to be done while kids continued to attend classes on the site. But it’s hard to see how any other decision ever made much sense.
For starters, there’s tradition. Fayetteville High has been in its present location since 1952. It’s a perfectly situated campus, located as it is next to the university. The high school property has been called one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Northwest Arkansas. Its proximity to the university provides opportunities for interaction with an institution of higher education that wouldn’t be available if the high school were moved elsewhere.
Valuable as the high school campus may be, it apparently wasn’t all that valuable to anybody else. A mysterious bid from some murky business interests dried up before it ever became official. Which left only the university’s offer of $ 50 million, several million less than the appraisals the school district had received.
The school district found itself in a bind. If it had accepted the university’s offer, the district would have had to lease the property back for a few years while the new high school was being built across town. Which would have further reduced the $ 50 million the district would have gotten. In the end, there wouldn’t have been nearly enough money left to pay for a new high school, which means a substantial new millage would have been needed.
Fayetteville has a history of supporting its schools. But the last millage increase was voted down, largely because of dissatisfaction with the district’s administration. With residents seriously divided over whether to find a new location for their high school, the prospects for a successful millage vote this time weren’t promising.
As it turned out, the university wasn’t all that interested in the property, either. It might have taken 25 to 50 years for the university to get around to taking full advantage of the new property. Other needs were more pressing. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when the university withdrew its offer. After all the meetings, the phone calls, the debates, and the confidential discussions, the school district has been forced to recognize what should have been clear all along: There’s no place like home.
When the school board voted to build on the existing site, it called for the community to get behind its decision. That’s nice, but a big part of the community always has been in favor of keeping the high school just where it is. It was the school board that got off track. Now that events have forced the board to recognize reality, it can surely count on the taxpayers to support what a lot of those taxpayers have favored all along.
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