Anchorage School District officials and local elected leaders broke ground at Inlet View Elementary School on Monday before a crowd of dozens of teachers, students and neighbors.
A new school will be built over the next year and a half alongside the existing building in South Addition. Supporters of the project, including Inlet View parent and teacher Beth Daly-Gamble, say the upgrade is vital. The current school, built in 1957, is overcrowded and old.
“The rooms are small, we have tiles coming up from the floor all the time,” Daly-Gamble said. ”We call building maintenance probably every single day from things that are falling apart and our sewage backed up two years ago into the playground area, and sat like that for a while.”
The school also does not have a sprinkler system or a separate cafeteria. Students eating lunch share a room with other students taking gym class.
The new school will have more space.
As the only elementary school with an International Baccalaureate program in the state, Inlet View draws students from across the city to attend. The school enrolled about 215 students two years ago — 45 students over capacity. The new building will have room for nearly 300 students.
Rebuilding Inlet View has been talked about for years.
The roughly $50 million project got the final funding needed in April when voters passed a school bond with nearly $19 million for Inlet View. A similar bond failed two years earlier. Those opposed argued that repairing the existing building would be cheaper. But district staff say it’s less expensive in the long-term to build a new school. Over 500 requests for repairs were submitted in 2018. Outbuildings that were originally meant to be temporary have served as classrooms at the school for 15 years.
State and district money will also help fund construction.
Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, commented on the hurdles the project has faced while speaking to the crowd gathered at the Inlet View playground Monday morning.
“It was the passion and tenacity of parents and teachers that overcame every single one of those obstacles,” Fields said. “I know there are some of you who have been working to see this moment for 25 years. Thank you for being that committed to this community.”
Daly-Gamble started the International Baccalaureate program at Inlet View in 2021. She said the new building is needed, and got emotional watching district leaders toss shovels of ceremonial gravel at the groundbreaking.
“Our community’s very, very strong here and the families believe in our students, believe in our teachers, believe in our school,” Daly-Gamble said. “It’s just going to bring us even closer, and it’s going to help us grow.”
Project Manager Charlie Peters said students are expected to start attending school in the new, bigger Inlet View starting in 2026, and then the old building will be demolished that fall. Before then, crews will build a viewing platform, and students will learn about the school construction as part of their IB curriculum.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated when Beth Daly-Gamble started the International Baccalaureate program at Inlet View Elementary School. She started the program in 2021.
Tim Rockey is the producer of Alaska News Nightly and covers education for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at trockey@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8487. Read more about Tim here.
