by Barbara Kline

Superintendent

The School Construction Bond for 11.9 million dollars was passed by the voters in November of 2012.  In all of the information put before voters, the use of the bond was explained as being necessary to:

“Address health and safety issues and pay for renovations and repairs to the 1980’s buildings.  These include the middle school, library, cafeteria, music room, woodshop, home economics/culinary arts room. As a part of the project, we will be building improved spaces for Career and Technical Education classes such as woods and applied physics.”

Our architectural team from Mahlum Architects, along with our local Bond Advisory Committee and Orcas Island School Board members, have met regularly to work out the overall plan to determine where each program fits. Over the summer, more detailed plans will be created and finalized. We expect these to be completed and be ready for bidding early in 2014. Work should be starting on the first phase of the project in April of 2014. All work is expected to be completed in time to begin school in September of 2015.

As an overall plan developed, it was determined that we could move the Middle School into the Nellie Milton building.   Classrooms on the south end of the building would be re-developed to accommodate the seventh and eighth grades, and these would be closed off from the rest of the upper elementary by doors.

By moving these grades, we could then move the school library into what was the existing Middle School building. That building will now include space that can be used by the public, without any egress to classrooms. This includes the library, culinary arts, and a tech lab.

Finally, new music rooms would be located onto the back of the old gym – near the new CTE building.  This will greatly open up the front of the campus and allow for a new drop-off area.  The old library will be renovated into OASIS classrooms, and administrative offices.

The first physical change that you will see is the addition of a modular building expected to arrive on campus in July or August.   We received the building through our Washington State University Energy consortium. Only a few years old, it is coming from the University of Washington campus. The building itself is free; we are paying to move it to the island and to set it up on our campus.

It will be set up behind the district office building and will provide extra classroom space for a class that needs to move during construction. Temporarily the building will be placed on flat ground somewhere on campus.

Plans and architectural renderings of the proposed changes are posted in the front window of the school library for the summer.  If you have the opportunity, please stop by.

If you would like more information or someone to come and give a brief presentation about the bond work to your group, call me at the district office 376-2284.