Facilities committee continues discussion of possible land swap with Stephen Cove Community Foundation; trustees urge caution

The Stevensville School District’s facilities committee reported on continuing talks about a potential land swap with the Stephen Cove Community Foundation, emphasizing that any swap should yield land adjacent to the existing school complex and allow for shared school and community use.

Committee members summarized a facilities map from the district’s 20-year plan and said the committee is open to a land swap only if the replacement land is close to the current campus, not across the supply ditch. The committee also discussed a potential standalone community center that could be used by both schools and the community, noting it would require separate contractual agreements and logistics for scheduling, maintenance and custodial responsibilities.

Staff and trustees said the foundation is working on a timeline and has some tasks due in early April; staff said the swap would require appraisals, engineering, legal review and possible policy updates. Several trustees cautioned against hasty commitments, noting past difficulties when the school was closely involved in community facility projects and expressing concern about long-term maintenance burdens on district staff with already-limited custodial capacity.

The facilities committee asked trustees to send questions and comments to staff for consolidation and said it would present a recommendation at the January facilities meeting and report back to the full board in February. The committee emphasized that this stage is informational only and no board action was taken at the Dec. 17 meeting.