By Kristine Thomas
The boilers and the water have been turned off.
The doors leading to it will be blocked. Signage will notify people it is no longer usable.
The oldest part of the former Silverton High School campus at Schlador Street will remain vacant until the Silver Falls School Board decides its fate.
Superintendent Andy Bellando said the school board has changed the occupancy of the oldest portion of the former high school declaring it no longer usable for educational purposes.
“By closing the building, we are fulfilling our promise to the voters,” Bellando said. “The oldest part of the Schlador Street campus is seriously unsafe for students and educational use. It’s mechanically unsound and seismically unsafe.”
While the oldest portion of the building can’t be used for educational purposes, it can be used for storage.
Bellando said the district will continue to use the eight classrooms near the gym along with the gym and locker rooms.
Community Roots School, a free public Montessori charter school founded in 2009, recently moved from Monitor Elementary School to classrooms at Schlador Street. Community Roots, a school in the Silver Falls School District, follows the Montessori principles of education and currently serves grades 1-5.
Because the boiler system is connected throughout the school, Bellando said to heat the gym and classrooms meant heating the entire school, costing the district $100,000 a year.
This summer, the district paid $30,000 to install a heating system for just the gym and classrooms, Bellando said.
“By installing a new heating system, it will save the district money,” he said.
Beginning this fall, Bellando said the school board will begin to discuss the future of the Schlador Street campus as well as the physical needs of all the district’s buildings.
“We need to look at our buildings and create a long range plan for what we want 10 to 50 years down the road,” Bellando said.
In August of 2008, the school board unanimously approved the recommendations in the facilities master plan. The plan serves as a guideline for board members to make decisions in the future of its facitilies.Many of the ideas – such as building a new middle school in town – in the plan can’t be done until funding is secured. The committee recommended the district should seek voter approval of a bond measure in 2013.
The committee also cautioned the school board against putting good money into old buildings.
For Eugene Field, a report reads, “the need to replace this structure, we believe, is obvious and not debatable.” In 1969, the Silverton Elementary Board of Directors recommended no further maintenance funds to be allocated to Eugene Field and that the building be replaced.
Belland said the district currently owns 9 acres off of Steelhammer and 12 acres near Robert Frost Elementary School.
“We need to look at the future of our district’s buildings and what needs to be done,” he said.
Bellando added the district has sold the Monitor School to OBO Education Center of Woodburn for $399,000.
“It’s my understanding the site will be used for home schooling for Russian students,” Bellando said. “I understand it will continue to be used as a school.”
Bellando said some of the money from the sale would go toward capital improvements at Butte Creek and Scotts Mills Elementary schools and the remainder toward capital improvements for district schools.
