A one-million dollar expansion program is being planned by the Smelter School District, L.W. McConachie, superintendent, announced Monday. The proposed expansion program calls for the construction of a new educational and recreational center on a 54-acre tract near White School and near the junction of Highway 80-A and Highway 80 in the Upper Valley.
At present the Smelter school district consists of White, Courchesne and Smeltertown grade schools with a population of 3500 persons, according to McConachie. The center would include, a new senior high school; a new elementary school; conversion of the White School building into a junior high; a community recreation center, a health center, and a field house, football stadium and other athletic fields.
“However,” McConachie pointed out, “the entire expansion program depends on the Smelter district withdrawing from the County Common School District and forming a new independent district. Sketches of the proposed center already have been drawn by the firm of Monroe, Licht and Higgins, architects and engineers. The plans show the proposed grade school west of Highway 80-A, the high school to the north on Mesa Highway, and an underpass for the safety of school children beneath highway 80-A.”
A petition already is being circulated in the district calling for an election on creating an independent school district. The petition is scheduled to be presented to County Judge Hugh McGovern in the next two weeks.
McConachie said that a big residential district will open if the city brings water from its Canutillo wells along the Mesa Highway as it has been proposed. If this project materializes, then the community educational program will be a must, he said.
McConachie added that Canutillo may want to merge with the Upper Valley Independent School District.
Feruary 3, 1953
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