The future of Schlador Street campus: Replacing and remodeling parts of former high school included in bond proposal

Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series on the proposed $36.9 million bond measure for construction and maintenance projects for the Silver Falls School District on the May 21 ballot. Previous stories on Eugene Field School and the Replace or Repair debate ran on April 1 and April 15.

By Kristine Thomas

Last fall, Joanne Stone asked Silver Falls School District board members why they would consider placing middle school students in the Schlador Street campus when in 2006 the board deemed the building seismically unsafe for high school students.

“If there is an earthquake, middle school students don’t run any faster than high school students,” Stone said.

A retired educator who taught for five years at the Silverton High School Schlador Street campus and 28 years at Mark Twain Middle School, Stone told the board she didn’t want students in the older portion of the building.

Converting the former high school campus into a middle school is a part of the plan for $36.9 million bond measure for construction and maintenance projects for the Silver Falls School District in the May 21 election.

The bond also would pay for maintenance and facility upgrades at the district’s elementary schools and allow the district to discontinue the use of Eugene Field Elementary School.

Silver Falls School District Superintendent Andy Bellando acknowledges people have asked why the board has proposed using the Schlador Street campus when during the 2006 bond election the district said the school should be closed because it was unsafe.

“In 2006, the district stated its concern about the Schlador Street building from a seismic standpoint,” Bellando said. “That has not changed. We won’t be placing any students in a building unless it is safe to do so and meets the current code and compliance standards.”

Using information provided by qualified and licensed professionals, Bellando said the school board has analyzed the costs of remodeling the older portion of the building versus demolishing that section and rebuilding. He said the cost is about the same. The building also has code compliance and mechanical problems.

If the bond is approved, the board has stated it would demolish the two- and three-story section of the former high school and the multi-purpose room and rebuild, along with remodeling the classrooms on James Street.

“The board believes it would get a better value on the dollar if there was a partial demolition and reconstruction,” Bellando said. “We would also be able to design a school that better serves as a middle school for the next 50 to 75 years.”

Knowing the oldest portion of the Schlador Street building would be demolished, Stone said she now supports the bond measure.

“I am satisfied they are choosing to remove the oldest section and not use the sections of the building that are unsafe,” she said. “I think we need to pass the bond to improve our schools.”

According to Bellando, approval of the bond will not change what property owners see on their current tax bill. The bond rate is projected to remain at the current level of about $3.35 per $1,000 of assessed value. The bond approved by voters in 1994 will be paid off in June 2013. This “enables the district to issue the new bond without increasing total bond levy rates,” according to district material.

Mark Twain Middle School Principal Dandy Stevens only has to point to the ceiling patch in the main hallway, for an example of why the bond is needed to make maintenance repairs at schools. Each building principal has a list of maintenance projects.  Successive years of reduced school funding from the state have impacted maintenance and custodial budgets.

Last fall, a puddle of water was discovered on the floor when the Mark Twain staff came to work. They placed a garbage can under the steady stream of water leaking from the ceiling.

“We don’t have a full-time custodian in the building,” Stevens said. “By the time a maintenance person got here to turn off the water, we had a foot of water in the garbage can.”

A decaying weld in the pipe caused the leak. For weeks, there was a hole in the ceiling until the ceiling was dry enough to repair.

It is one of the many problems she faces in her building, she said. Inadequate technology infrastructure is a common problem in many of the district’s schools, Stevens said.

With new state and federal requirements for school districts to begin in the 2014-15 school year, Stevens said there is a need for upgraded technology – which the bond would pay for in all district schools.

The new required tests in language arts, math and science take about four hours – for each test, she said. Given that she has one computer lab which can serve 30 students, and 315 students in her building, just figuring out how all the students can take the test is a logistical problem.

“Both middle school and high school is much harder for students than when their parents went to school,” Stevens said. “There is more expected of our students. We have good teachers. We need to have the buildings in place to support them.”

For example, Stevens said she would like to add a half-time science teacher, however, she doesn’t have a classroom to put the teacher.

Having a middle school for fifth through eighth grade students would allow for more shared resources including the gym, library and cafeteria and fewer transitions for students, Stevens said.

Much time and thought has gone into creating a plan to protect the district’s assets, Bellando said.

In 2008, both the district’s Facilities Master Plan Committee and Randal Saunders, an architect from Woodburn, advised the board to ask voters to approve a bond in 2013 and recommended converting Schlador to a middle school; closing Eugene Field and making necessary repairs to all other schools.

The report in 2008 on Eugene Field stated, “the need to replace this structure, we believe, is obvious and not debatable.” As far back as 1969 the Silverton Elementary Board of Directors recommended no further maintenance funds to be allocated to Eugene Field and that the building be replaced.

“I don’t recommend investing any more money into Eugene Field,” Victor Madge, architect and Silverton planning commissioner, wrote in 2008. “Hopefully, people will realize it’s worn out and dangerous.”

The report evaluated each school building and cited repairs needed.

Stevens said the proposals in the bond would help level the playing field for all students in the district with upgrades to each school’s security and technology infrastructures as well as addressing delayed maintenance issues.

“I think it is time for us to look at the facilities we are educating our children in,” Stevens said. “Whether we do it now or later, we are eventually going to have to make these repairs and investments in our schools. We are better off as a community if we give our students and teachers a safe place to teach and learn.”