The chain-link fence around a field at Pompano Beach's Blanche Ely High School is the same color as its baseball diamond, a deep, red-brown shade of rust. The dugouts are so antiquated, Ely can't host baseball games. And there's no track around the football gridiron -- only a swath of white asphalt for runners to practice.

``You walk on those bleachers, you feel like you're going to fall down,'' said activist Sylas Brown, whose granddaughter is a freshman at the school. ``Bottom line: We need help.''

The Broward school district has been scrutinized for overbuilding and for how it doles out contracts since the September arrest of suspended School Board member Beverly Gallagher in a federal corruption probe.

Lost in the shuffle have been several pending projects at older, eastern Broward schools like Ely that are hungry for renovations.

Fort Lauderdale High is in line for a pool. Boyd Anderson High in Lauderdale Lakes has been waiting for a new library. And on Tuesday -- after years of delays and controversy -- the School Board may award a contract to build a $6.14 million athletic complex at Ely.

The projects are particularly sensitive because they're for predominantly black schools -- in a district with a history of not providing equal facilities and resources to minorities.

The district is under a mandate to ensure racial equity for students, following a settlement to a 1995 lawsuit filed by families who said schools in Broward's western suburbs had more resources than schools to the east.

Yearly reports on the 2000 settlement have shown the district has made some progress to meet the goals set by the historic lawsuit. But areas for improvement remain -- and some in eastern Broward still feel their schools have been neglected, something schools officials dispute.

``Because of the community we're in, it's just not a priority,'' said Ernestine Price, an Ely graduate and longtime activist who was a plaintiff in the equity lawsuit.

ELY PROJECTS

Michael Garretson, the district's construction chief, disagreed. He pointed to Ely projects in recent years, including a remodeled cafeteria and revamped media center with a TV production room. ``We've done so much for that school,'' he said. ``The new technology that we have installed in the eastern schools is far superior to technology in some western schools, even newer ones.''

Bringing in that technology, like interactive white boards, has frequently meant building new classrooms at eastern schools -- many of which are underenrolled.

School Board Chairwoman Maureen Dinnen, whose district includes Fort Lauderdale and Plantation, said classroom additions at eastern schools have been less about extra space and more about retrofitting old schools for ``the computer age.''

``When we launched building in the west . . . some of the eastern schools got left behind,'' Dinnen said. ``Some of those people had been putting up with old science labs, no stadiums.''

Ely has 2,071 students -- and space for 1,401 more, according to the district's 20th-day enrollment count.

A new classroom addition and culinary arts lab is already under construction at the school. Once that new building is open, the district will demolish older classrooms Garretson called unsafe.

The new athletic facilities project will include a 5,000-seat football field, a baseball field, a track and a concession stand.

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