MONTE VISTA — Monte Vista School officials found out last week that there will be no BEST (Building Excellent Schools Today) grant for the district this year.

The District submitted a 460 page comprehensive application to the program in April of this year, covering remodeling work at Metz, Marsh and Monte Vista Middle School, as well as plans for an entirely new high school.

A match of more than $7 million from the recent bond election was proposed to go with the $35 million requested from the BEST program.

Feedback from the Colorado Department of Education indicated that the BEST program was simply not prepared for applications of this complexity, Supt. Dwayne Newman said.

The applications were ranked and funding awarded based on very well documented system. However, the formula for ranking requests was geared more toward single building issues and not easily adapted to a request as complex as Monte Vista’s.

“The decision now is to move forward in two directions,” Newman said. “We are committed to improving our application to more clearly express our need, and applying for the next round of BEST funding. At the same time, there are several projects that we will likely start on using the bond money only.”

The school board will have a work session Aug. 25 to consider the different construction and remodeling options.



For the complete article see the 08-19-2009 issue.

Click here to purchase an electronic version of the 08-19-2009 paper.