Our Question:

How is it that the Save Pocatello High School Committee could get over 1700 comments in opposition to your plan and you could only get 90 comments total?

School District Response:

We are confident that the majority of our stakeholders recognize our need to move forward with improvements to Pocatello High School and are confident in our ability to produce a final outcome that will enhance the educational value of learners attending Pocatello High school. We do not dispute that the Save Pocatello High School Committee got 1700 signatures on the petition. People are very passionate in this community about Pocatello High School. We believe that the use of terminology like Save Pocatello High School to promote the committee's petition and Facebook page may have been misleading to the public and also a misrepresentation of what has taken place to date with the project, including the positive feedback received by board members, administrator, teachers, students and community members.

Save Pocatello High School's Response:

Save Pocatello High School is also " confident that the majority of stakeholders recognize a need to move forward with improvements to Pocatello High School." We are less certain that the School Board will do so while maintaining the historical continuity, harmony and beauty of Pocatello High School. Our conclusion is based on 1) the current plans to deface the existing main building with a new entry way that destroys the symmetry, beauty and the original intent of the builders, and 2) the school boards insistence on adding a modernist glass structure to connect the buildings when there are better solutions.

We are critical of the School Boards insistence that the public is well informed on this renovation project while at the same time asserting that Save Pocatello High School's supporters are being mislead.

We believe experience and history tells us that as the public becomes aware of the destruction that will take place to Pocatello High School with the current design, that they will be increasingly opposed.

We believe that there are many needed upgrades that should be made to Pocatello High School, but that it must be respectful to the existing architecture if we are to in fact "Save Pocatello High School."