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School bond's gym would solve number of district problems
Included in the Mountain Home School District's $37.5 million bond proposal to complete the junior high as a high school is a gymnasium complex with three gyms, a stand alone wrestling room, a weight training room and improved locker rooms.
The facility will be used as classrooms; help eliminate scheduling conflicts among the district's athletic teams, high school activities and community events; allow the high school to play host to district and potentially state events; and make Mountain Home facilities comparable to other gymnasiums in schools in the South Idaho Conference.
The centerpiece of the gymnasium complex is the main gym, with a capacity to seat 3,000 people, with two gyms in the mezzanine, the upper deck.
Mountain Home High School athletic director John Clark said the main court would most likely have the capacity to be split in half, creating two smaller courts. Combined with the current junior high gym, the new high school would have four gyms and five courts.
Mountain Home High School Principal Jeff Johnson said with those courts and the weight room, up to four PE classes could occur at once. Only two PE classes currently take place at once, Johnson said.
Johnson said the locker rooms are designed to allow for more teacher supervision of students. PE teachers would always be able to see what is going on in the locker rooms.
The addition of three gyms and four courts would open up a lot of practice time, Clark said.
During the winter basketball season, the boys' varsity, junior varsity and sophomore basketball teams must share the high school's two practice courts with the girls' varsity, junior varsity and sophomore teams.
To do that, practice is often scheduled until 8:30 p.m. Teams are sometimes sent to practice at Hacker Middle School, which has four basketball teams of its own, or the sophomore team shares the court at the junior high with the freshmen team.
Clark said scheduling teams for practice time becomes more complicated when there is a home basketball game or wrestling meet. The wrestling team uses the school's only regulation size court to host its meets.
Because the school's athletic teams use the gym for practice or to host up to four home events a week, Clark said having choir, band or drama events during the winter is virtually impossible.
The cheerleader team is forced to hold practice at an elementary school gym.
The addition of three gyms, and a separate auditorium for band, choir and drama functions, would eliminate several scheduling conflicts and make the gyms more accessible to the community.
"We would still have the facilities here (the current high school), we'd have practice that hopefully won't go as late, and it would free up gym space for community usage," Clark said.
Clark said the gym is often booked, especially in the spring, since it is used little during the winter other than for basketball or wrestling events.
The Arts Council, city Parks and Recreation department and others use the gym frequently.
"If someone wants to do a community affair, they have to have it here (the high school)," Clark said, using Tops in Blues, Battle of the Bands, concerts and other shows as examples.
The demand is high enough Clark said he often has to turn people down.
Stan Franks, the city Parks and Recreation director, said Parks and Rec and the school district cooperate well together. He said the only limitation the school district puts on the Parks and Rec department is when the school district is using the facility for their own events.
He schedules around the school district's schedule to offer programs that fit around that schedule.
"The only limit is space, there's not enough space for all the programs we'd like to offer," Franks said.
The current gym is also used for school dances, band and choir concerts, drama shows and debate and speech tournaments.
Because of the size of the gym and the available seating, it is no longer used to host district wrestling or varsity basketball tournaments.
Clark said the current gym does not have the ability to hold district events and he has had to turn down hosting the events because there isn't enough seating available in the gym.
Hosting district tournaments helps Mountain Home because it brings people into town to buy food, gas and hotel rooms, Clark said.
Clark said he would push for state events with better facilities.
District and state tournaments would not be the only time major tournaments are held in the gym. Clark said the wrestling team could hold major tournaments as a fundraiser.
The boys' basketball team holds a four- to six-team tournament in the summer as a fundraiser but splits games between the high school and junior high school courts.
The main gym would be built on the bottom floor of the completed high school. The two smaller gyms would be on the second floor, one on each side. Stands would allow spectators to watch events held in each gym.
The smaller gyms would be used for PE classes, athletic practice, sub-varsity events, additional mat space for wrestling tournaments and community usage, such as Park and Rec games.
A walkway connects the two smaller gyms together and overlooks the main gym. A rubber surface will be put down to create a two-lane walking/running area. Johnson said the additional cost was minimal since everything but the rubber surface was already included in the original plan.
The wrestling, weight training and cardio room will be located on the main floor.
The wrestling room will be big enough to hold two complete mats. Having the wrestling room on the main floor will make setting up for home meets easier since mats would not have to be carried up and down stairs as they are now.
High school wrestling coach Lynn Knudson said the increased space is needed to accommodate the number of wrestlers involved in the program.
The weight training and cardio rooms will be accessible through independent entrances and through the wrestling room.
Knudson said he tries to stress strength conditioning as part of the wrestling program and having the rooms so close together would make it easier to do so.
The gym is big enough to hold indoor graduation ceremonies, eliminating the element of chance, Johnson said, of allowing the weather to dictate if the ceremony is held indoors or outdoors.
Clark said the proposed gym is comparable to other gyms in the district, specifically Kuna and Skyview.
"We're not trying to be bigger, we're just doing what everyone else in the conference is doing," Clark said.
"It is in the best interest of the youth in Mountain Home. It allows their education experience to be that much better." .
The school district will ask voters to approve the $37.5 million bond on April 29.