The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is monitoring the progress of the Alaska LNG project but has not taken any predictive steps quite yet.
School Board President Joe Arness said of course it’s been discussed but until the project meets some significant milestones there is no use getting ahead of themselves.
Arness: “At this moment there is no response that we have generated because we really don’t know what we’re responding too. If we’re going to talk about 4-5thousand people coming into town to build this thing but they’re not bringing their families then it doesn’t have much to do with the school district, if they’re coming in and bringing their families than that’s a whole different conversation.”
He added if those projected construction jobs come to term the area the school district will mostly be concerned with is elementary education.
Arness: “The place where we would really have trouble is elementary and that we already know. Secondary we’re in pretty good shape, Kenai high school has got space, Soldotna high school has some space, Nikiski has some space, elementary wise we’re really strapped.”
Arness estimated the district would need around 5-7 years of lead time to accommodate the influx of families that is forecast.