Boise Replaces Old Schools With New Ones
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Oct. 23, 2008
Although at least three schools will be demolished and replaced, the Boise School District will renovate four schools, including this 1913 building.
Credit: Save Our Schools
In Boise, Idaho, two schools are gone, and the fate of at least five other National Register-listed schools is unclear.
Last summer, bulldozers leveled South Junior High (built in 1948 and not listed on the National Register), and an elementary school is next. The demolitions come in the wake of a $94 million bond measure that voters passed in 2006 to "consolidate, renovate, and rebuild" the city's schools.
Last month, workers broke ground on a new $10 million Whitney Elementary School on the same site as a 1926 school. And this fall, the Boise School District will officially dedicate five more new buildings.
The school district conducted a comprehensive study of its schools starting in 2004, says spokesman Dan Hollar.
"In the in-depth analysis of our facilities, we looked at replacement versus renovation. In the case of those [demolished] schools, we took into account what the public wanted," he says. "The district has students in our care today, and we need to educate them in quality facilities."
Preservationists lament that the school district chose to replace, rather than renovate, the buildings. "It's the first of many [demolitions]," says Dan Everhart, president of the board of Preservation Idaho, about South Junior High School. But, he says, "The final chapter has not been written on a couple of the buildings."
The district plans to renovate four historic schools but sell five others. "If the buyers can keep those buildings going for another possible use, that's great," Hollar says.
Preservation Idaho is working to ensure that at least two schools will remain standing. A charter school is interested in buying one of the buildings, Everhart says.
"The preservation community did our best to make people aware of what the bond meant," Everhart says. "But, as with other issues, especially schools, it's very difficult to convince the public."
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