Construction Decisions and Timelines Depend on Several Factors
Over the past few years, the district has developed building guidelines based on what education experts around the country know about great schools. The kind of environment in which learning happens best are safe, light-filled, and have the capacity to continue incorporating up-to-date technology. They are structured to enhance collaboration and relationships between teachers and students – they are places where all students can be recognized, cherished and nurtured.
Another important factor in the construction scheduling will be timing construction to coincide with the payoff of the district’s existing debt in order to maintain a level tax rate.
What You Can Expect to See, and When
Some of the changes in the schools will be dramatic, but even if they aren’t obvious, you can bet they are important and they will support best practices for learning.
- In 2009, Valhalla Elementary and Panther Lake Elementary's leaky roofs and long hallways gave way to rooms that are warm and light-filled, where staff can collaborate more easily. Both schools are situated away from traffic, and the security of students and staff is more easily ensured. Valhalla’s wiring no longer requires staff to stagger their use of electrical equipment to avoid blowing breaker fuses. What is now bigger than a breadbox? Panther Lake’s kitchen.
- In 2010, the ancient furnace and heavy quilted window coverings at Lakota Middle School will be things of the past, and students’ sweatshirts can come off on cold school days. The 27 random, hard-to-monitor entrances will be gone. The 40-some year old carpet – first trod on by students who today are in their mid to late 50’s, that in one room has been permanently marked with the seating plan of a class long gone – will no longer give its dreary greeting to wide-eyed 6th graders entering a crucial stage of their education.
- By the end of the summer of 2010, a variety of vital improvements to 23 other schools and Memorial Field will be completed. Projects like earthquake reinforcement, lighting, wiring and plumbing upgrades, new roofs, siding, and parking lot reconfigurations, will be finished using the state match funding resulting from rebuilding the other five schools. See a list of projects included in Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3.
- In 2011, Sunnycrest Elementary staff and students won’t need to worry about the toilets backing up because trees around the campus have once again insinuated their roots into the joints of the old concrete pipes leading from the building. All buildings will be designed and built with safety in mind. At Lakeland Elementary, like all of the new schools, technology will be brought up to date and wiring will support the needs of students now and in the future as new technology becomes available.
- In 2011, Transportation – the bus yard and shop – will be rebuilt and relocated to a site near Celebration Park. Access in and out of the site will be vastly improved for the approximately 150 school busses that come and go from the bus yard each day. With drive-through bays, Mechanics will be able to perform maintenance on the busses more efficiently and comfortably. There will even be an environmentally-friendly, water-recycling bus wash.
- In 2013, the Nutrition Services and Maintenance departments, among the oldest facilities in the district, will be rebuilt and relocated next to Transportation. The Central Kitchen will no longer prepare meals for the district’s hot lunch students in an oven that originally cooked meals for sailors aboard a World War II U.S. battleship.
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