Blackfoot School District voters in 2021 overwhelmingly approved a $23.9 million bond for several projects — a new elementary school, refitting the I. T. Stoddard Elementary School to be the Blackfoot Technical Education Center and numerous improvements to Blackfoot High School.
Two of these projects are close to full completion and several others have started.
This month, the new Riverbend Elementary School, located at 730 E. Walker St., will open in time for the start of school. It also is the first bond project to reach full completion. A media tour, led by Blackfoot School District Superintendent Brian Kress, is set for Friday, with a ribbon cutting ceremony for the community yet to be announced.
The improvements to Blackfoot High School include building a baseball-softball complex, updating the track, replacing the football bleachers and laying out a new soccer pitch.
Close to being done is the baseball-softball complex. In fact, this summer the high school hosted 14 different schools from across East Idaho. What remains to be done is adding lights on the varsity fields, which the district plans on doing next summer. Also close to completion is the resurfacing of the track. The rubberized track surface should be cured by now and only final details remain.
The overlooking football bleachers are another story. Apparently the bid went out and was awarded for the wrong kind of bleacher. Blackfoot High School currently has an I-beam system and they want to stay with that system instead of the angle frame system that was erroneously allowed in the bid. Next year, they can rebid and install the right system.
Until then, this fall’s football season will have a “flipped” football field, according to Kress. The home team and spectators will be on the east side where the existing bleachers are. All visitors will be on the west side and need to bring their own chairs or blankets. For the home crowd, Kress advises buying a good pair of sunglasses to mitigate the sun’s glare as they cheer on the Broncos – but just for this year. The 2025-26 season promises comfortable viewing all around.
The new soccer pitch will also be completed next summer in time for the 2025-26 season. The plans are for it to be located to the northeast of the football field so that it will have access to bathrooms and the concession stand that will be in the Blackfoot Technical Education Center.
The Blackfoot Technical Education Center retrofit to morph an elementary school into a technology center is currently in the bidding process. Kress calls this a miraculous and “amazing $8 million facility.” All $8 million is coming from two grants – half from the federal Economic Development Administration grant and half from the state Idaho Career Ready Students program. A timeline of completion will depend on when the bid is awarded.
The final project is to add an expanded student gathering and eating center at Blackfoot High School. At one point, this project was nearly abandoned. The cost of construction had risen so much the original bond funding no longer stretched as far as planned. However, the state’s School Modernization Program came to the rescue and now there are enough funds to start that project this month.
The original completion target date for all of the projects was for this fall. Though that date has been delayed a year, the good news is that Blackfoot’s ambitious education upgrade is still going to be fully implemented, despite inflation and construction delays.
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