The community has not agreed on the extent - or the existence - of problems much less how to fix them.

By Maria P. Gonzalez of the Union-Bulletin

Walla Walla High School may one day get new heating and cooling systems, and updated or additional buildings to help relieve overcrowding and address safety concerns.

Or maybe the area will support building another high school instead, and leaving Wa-Hi, for the most part, as is.

Or perhaps the crowding issue will be solved with College Place Public Schools supporting construction of its own high school, which would greatly reduce Wa-Hi's nearly 2,000-student population.

Whether those ideas become reality, precisely what will happen remains a mystery.

Initially, the district had put a pricetag of about $32.8 million to rebuild Wa-Hi. It also planned on drawing about $4 million to rebuild Lincoln Alternative High School, or the old Paine School, as part of a May 2006 proposal.

Although concerns with facilities and space at Wa-Hi appeared clear-cut as the district launched its comprehensive bond initiative last year, the needs as viewed by the community proved to be more complex.

That measure failed in the ballots, with people calling for simpler bond requests that handled one issue at a time.

With the passage of the Edison school bond earlier this year, the district is gearing up to tackle its next big project, determining how best to serve all the area's public high school students.

The district's challenge will be to find a smart, cost-effective measure with popular support that will cure overcrowding, aged structures and safety issues.

With those concerns in mind, the Walla Walla School District recently established a task force that will study the high school experience in the city until the group reaches common ground on what the students need and what the community will support.

The group hopes to address all the high school components, which include folding in the alternative high school. It may be a year or longer before the task force reaches a definitive conclusion that may then become a bond measure.

Yet many of the the needs at the high school are obvious, according to facility studies. The school has exceeded capacity. Students often complain about the open campus and cringe on days when the weather dips below freezing and they must walk though the grounds to their next classes. Heating and cooling are inadequate, and the school needs more work to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Similar maintenance issues plague the former Paine School, which is not overcrowded but housed in an aging structure.

Superintendent Rich Carter stressed that the district does not have plans, nor a timeline, for a bond measure.

The dollar amounts offered in this series are taken from a comprehensive study conducted about two years ago in preparation for the May 2006 bond initiative.

Those amounts reflect improvements at the high school as simply one way to solve its issues.