Alpine district will get 2 new schools

The Alpine School Board recently approved funding to construct two new elementary schools, one in Eagle Mountain and one in Traverse Mountain.

"We are a growing district," said Alpine School Board Chair Debbie Taylor. "This year we gained more that 2,000 students. You've got to put those kids somewhere."

The two elementary schools, which are scheduled to open in fall 2010, are the last of a long string of new buildings the school district has constructed in the past few years, Taylor said. Since voters approved a $230 million building bond in 2006, the district has given the go-ahead on one high school, one junior high — which is also scheduled to open in 2010 — and five elementary schools.

The Eagle Mountain elementary school will be the city's third in five years.

Hidden Hollow Elementary's doors have been open only four months, and while that school is operating within its capacity, enrollment at the city's only other school is overflowing, said Alpine School District spokeswoman Rhonda Bromley. Eagle Valley Elementary was built to accommodate about 750 children, but is now serving 1,266. About 600 of those students, who are now taking classes in portable trailers, will attend the new school when it opens.

In Traverse Mountain, parents have been petitioning the board for an elementary school of their own for months, Bromley said. Their students now attend Ridgeline Elementary in the neighboring city of Highland.

Bromley said that, in addition to overcrowding at Ridgeline, parents were concerned about the commute from Highland to Traverse Mountain. State Route 92 is steep, and when icy, it is nearly impossible for buses and cars to maneuver. Last year students had to spend the night in the school cafeteria after a particularly bad snowstorm.

"This school is very, very needed," Bromley said. "Quite often parents just can't get to the school, and buses just can't get to the parents."

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