SLC Times

QUESTION: What’s really going to happen with West High and Highland High?

ANSWER: There are many moving pieces and the Board of Education will be receiving reports and making decisions as we move into the spring.

I am hoping you have heard about the feasibility studies we are conducting for these two schools. The feasibility studies are being conducted by two professional architectural firms, VCBO Architecture for West High and NWL Architects for Highland High, and are designed to provide expert guidance on the possibilities of renovating or rebuilding the schools. The architects will use their years of experience to provide expert opinions on the needs of the school building and community, give a review of cost estimates, make sure we meet student needs, and consider priorities like energy efficiency.

You may wonder why we are taking this action now. Both of these school buildings are very old. Both have seen multiple updates, upgrades, repairs, and additions. The age of these buildings and their machinery make repairs extremely expensive. In some cases, we can’t even find parts for some of the re, we need to make. As we considered these factors, changes in technology, the safety and well-being of our staff and students, as well as the future educational needs of our students, it became clear that we had to take a serious look at major changes to these two high schools.

The two architectural firms we hired are scheduled to present their findings to the Salt Lake City Board of Education in February. They have spent several months meeting with teachers, students, and community members; touring the schools and documenting current or potential problems; and learning about the history and traditions of both schools and their surrounding communities. They have held two rounds of public meetings to discuss their work, and a third round of public meetings will be held in January before they report to the Board of Education. We invite you to join us for these meetings.

West High SchoolTuesday, January 17, 20237 p.m. in the school library

Highland High SchoolMonday, January 23, 20237 p.m. in the school library

Spanish translation will be available at each meeting. We can provide translation into other languages by request. Please call (801) 578-8378 to request translation into a language other than Spanish. If you are not able to attend, the meetings will also be live-streamed in English and Spanish on the district’s YouTube channel. 

Original source can be found here.