school updating project in hayden, colorado secures state backing

An updated school project partly, funded by a bond approved by a two-vote margin, will soon see work in the northeast Colorado town of Hayden.

Officials with the Hayden School District have long been planning to extensively modernize the current Hayden Valley Elementary School.

In the process, the district will demolish a middle school built in 1947, and a high school that went up in 1977.

As proposed, the updating of the elementary school, which will house pre-kindergarten to 12th grade students, will cost $61 million to build.

The work will also see a complete replacement of the school’s plumbing, mechanical, and electrical systems.

Some $22 million of the total $61 million is coming from a 2016 bond which, in an improbably close election, was approved by a vote of 431 to 429.

District officials subsequently sought state matching funds for the project, only to see that request turned down last year by the Colorado State Board of Education.

But the district’s chances for getting funding through the state’s Building Excellent Schools Today program were practically guaranteed when state officials listed the project as a front-runner for money this year.

Now the Education Board has awarded the Hayden District $38 million to build the new school.

The BEST funding for the Hayden district represents the largest dollar amount the program is awarding this year.

Work is expected to begin on the upgrading project in the summer of 2019 with a completion date of fall 2020.

By Garry Boulard

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