A proposed layout for Cosumnes River Elementary features a library front and center, just off Jackson Road, a 165-space parking lot at left, a two-story classroom building, rear center, and play fields on the site of the present school, right. See larger image here.

A sketch of the new Cosumnes River Elementary School -- with a library at the campus entrance, a long winding drive and play fields 10 feet above Jackson Road -- was presented Tuesday night to the Elk Grove Unified School District board.

At the same time, the board president warned that the area's residents must be prepared for the difficulties of the project, including traffic impacts on Highway 16.

Michael Rainforth of Rainforth Grau Architects explained that the facility would include 15 acres wrapping the present four-acre site. He showed a topographic map of the full 19-acre site, which features two 50-foot hills behind the present school.

The hills would be bulldozed and the dirt used to raise the rest of the campus.

"A great deal of dirt can fairly easily be removed from these higher regions, put into the lower areas ... to elevate (the site) above the elevations of the highway," Rainforth said.

He said safety for the school was one of the job requirements, which the plans meet by setting the facility back from Jackson Road and elevating it well above the present grade.

"The play fields will be about 10 feet above the elevation of Highway 16," he said. "The highest buildings here -- the office and the kindergarten -- will be about 15 feet above the play fields."

Despite this, he said someone walking into the facility from Jackson Road would only have to climb a 5 percent grade. The campus would meet requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act, he said.

The facility would include a two-story, 24-classroom academic building as well as an office building, a multi-purpose building, a kindergarten building and day-care facilities.

Traffic at the school would benefit from a traffic signal at the new junction of Kiefer Boulevard and Jackson Road, as well as turn lanes in both directions on Jackson.

The long entry road into the school "is to get vehicles off the highway as quickly as possible and as many as possible," Rainforth said. The parking lot has 165 spaces plus 50 more on the driveway.

The facility would pump its own water and treat its wastewater.

Robert Pierce, associate superintendent for facilities and planning, said he would return to the board Sept. 2 for approval of the schematic design, which would move the project to design development.

At that point, construction impact on pupils and the school community will be better understood, he said. One key question is whether the students will stay on site during construction or be moved.

Board President Bryan Myers applauded the project and encouraged district staff to meet with the school community to address the challenges the construction will bring.

"I think you can take this out there (to the community) and get some input, understanding that this is tentative, this is where we are right now, and get some sense of the community," Myers said. "I would encourage the staff as they do that ... to be brutally honest.

"They really need to understand -- there are 63,000 cubic yards of dirt that are going to get removed from the site and moved around. Thirty thousand or so of that will go across the street to help build up Kiefer Road, but there's thirty-some thousand cubic yards of dirt we've got to find a place to put. Because of the (project) phasing it's got to sit somewhere for a while."

He invited the community to share ideas on how to address the problems.

"We need a window to do all that huge, heavy grading," Myers said. "It may not be that we can do it over the nine weeks or 10 weeks of a summer vacation. It may be that we delay the start of school 60 days to get that window bigger...."

He added, "(The community needs) to understand the noise, the distractions, the Jackson Highway issue of traffic being shut down at times. This will be a mess for a year, and no one should underestimate that. I really think you need to be very honest with the community. ...

"This will be a fantastic, beautiful school. But getting there's going to be a hard road. They need to all understand that, quite clearly."

Once all permits are obtained and California Environmental Quality Act requirements are met, the district would move to purchase the property, Pierce said. He said the district had hoped to do that by Jan. 1, but it's not certain the deadline can be met.

In January, the school board unanimously approved a $900,000 purchase option for the additional 15 acres.

District officials have said the "paper planning" for the school would take at least a year and the facility might open in 2010 or 2011.