LANGLEY — When South End community members first saw the initial $43.3 million price tag to move the middle school to the high school, they weren’t the only ones who suffered sticker shock.

“Those on the committee had a similar reaction to the numbers,” said Langley Middle School principal Rod Merrell.

Last year, a district-commissioned consultant report found it would take $18 million to $25 million to renovate the 75-year-old Langley Middle School. That, plus declining enrollment, led to the school board’s decision to shut down LMS by 2012 and move its students to the high school campus.

A report on the cost to consolidate the two campuses, prepared by TCF Architecture, was presented to the school district’s consolidation committee last week. The list of potential costs — which include 58 separate line items, including new classrooms and additions ($11 million), a field house and middle school gym ($8 million), a new parking lot ($668,000), fencing and walkways ($400,000) and upgraded artificial turf on the school’s athletic fields ($6 million) — totalled more than $43.3 million.

Merrell and other school officials stressed that the number is preliminary, and there is no doubt the cost of the consolidation project will decrease in the weeks to come.

The district’s consolidation committee, which includes Merrell, is responsible for making recommendations to District Superintendent Fred McCarthy and the school board.

“Our job is to prioritize each item on the list to bring those costs down to a level that makes sense,” Merrell said. “We know that everyone is struggling with hard economic times; we deal with the effects on our students every day.”

He said the committee has started to look at the current situation at both schools and is trying to predict what kinds of programs and facilities might be needed in the future as the district prepares to consolidate the two schools’ students and programs.

Not every item on the list may have merit or survive the initial cuts, including the covered tennis courts, climbing wall and pedestrian bridge that were mentioned in last week’s report.

But Merrell said there are some areas that are crucial to the combined campus environment, including the highly successful sports programs run by both schools.

“A good example of an essential item is the artificial turf requested for the high school fields,” Merrell explained.

“At first pass, it looks like a luxury, but it isn’t. With all the varsity and JV teams trying to use a single field, it will soon get torn up. And that’s just for games, let alone practices,” he said. “After the initial investment, in the long run it will save money.”

He said the same is true regarding a separate middle school gym. A recent poll found that parents and students are worried about access to gym locker rooms, with sixth-graders and 12th-graders sharing athletic facilities.

“Having their own gym lockers and a place to change is essential, in my view,” he said.

Even so, some of the items that will survive the initial round of cuts will get greater scrutiny in the months ahead. That includes the $6 million for new turf on athletic fields at the high school.

Committee members will also examine pieces of the proposed renovations at the high school campus to make sure those changes fit the goals of the consolidation effort.

One goal, Merrell said, is making sure middle school students to maintain their own sense of identity — as Cougars, and not Falcons — after the move. That’s important in the students’ development as they mature from children to adults.

“They need their own classrooms, hallways and lockers,” Merrell said. “We want them to be productive so we must provide a meaningful and appropriate educational environment.”

This is Merrell’s fourth year as principal. Before serving as assistant principal at Mountlake Terrace High School, he was a teacher at Coupeville High School and saw the combined-school concept up close.

“At Coupeville, the schools are together, but the only time students run into each other is in the library,” he said. “The concept works up there.”

Merrell encouraged people to withhold judgement until the final plan — and the final cost estimate — is presented to the school board. District officials expect to put the bond measure for the high school upgrade on the May 18 ballot.

Before the vote on the bond, however, the school district will seek voters’ approval for a maintenance-and-operations levy on Feb. 9.

Merrell hopes people understand the difference between the two.

“Folks shouldn’t confuse this bond with the maintenance-and-operations levy on the ballot in February,” he said. “If the levy doesn’t pass, we’ll lose 20 percent of our essential funding, on top of the cuts we’ll be facing from decreased enrollment and state support.”

Merrell said that should the levy fail, the biggest hit will be on teachers, certain programs and classroom sizes.

“And our kids will be the losers,” he added.

At 6:30 p.m. tonight (Wednesday) at the elementary school, the school board will get its first look at the current restructuring plan and the costs involved.

Jeff VanDerford can be reached at 221-5300 or jvanderford@southwhidbeyrecord.com.