Our Schools Need Help!
The bond before the voters would make critical repairs and improvements to our existing
facilities.
The target for the school bond will be on the buildings that were not a focus of
the school renovations completed in the 1990s – our High School, Mt. Erie Elementary,
and the building that supports the maintenance of all the facilities in the district.
Anacortes High School as it exists today is the result of the initial construction
project in 1955, and major additions in 1959, 1976, and 1991. In 1999, several infrastructure
projects were completed in anticipation of a major remodel of the site in the coming
years. But now is the time to address the site as a whole. Many of the mechanical,
electrical, and plumbing systems in the buildings date back to the construction
of each building.
One remarkable group within the School District that deserves our thanks
and admiration is our maintenance team, led by Marty Yates, who has been with us
for over ten years. Marty and his team are responsible for keeping all the facilities
(indoors and out) in top shape for the benefit of our students and community users.
But that has become harder in recent years as the effects of time, weather and almost
a thousand students per day take their toll. For example, across the buildings that
comprise Anacortes High School, the roofs are in poor condition and well beyond
their useful life. Last winter, we were unable to get a roofing company to take the
job to repair a leak over a computer lab in the 1976 CTE wing, in part because the
existing roof deck (1/2" plywood spaced on 24" trusses) is considered by them to
be unsafe to work on. The patch shown at right was done by our maintenance department
with tools they borrowed for the job.
This is in addition to over 1000 square feet of crumbling roofing that blew off the
building in the windstorms last winter. And they are back at it, already replacing over 100
square feet this fall.
The seating and lighting controls for Brodniak Hall (used daily for class lectures)
are over 30 years old, and the manufacturers are no longer in business. The maintenance
team has been creative repairing, fabricating or searching across the country for
people removing similar systems from their facilities. We could always count on
the only person in the state who could repair our stage lighting controls to make
the trip here, even after he retired, until he passed away two years ago. Now we
must keep our fingers crossed that we don't have a failure or worse.
There are enormous challenges in keeping this collection of buildings a workable
school that can be a safe and supportive facility for our community and our children.
High School Renovations
It's about our students and visitors safety:
- control of entries and exits, to keep our students in and intruders out
- issues of narrow hallways with doors that swing into traffic and are difficult for
teachers to close without being exposed in a lock down
- need for the building to withstand earthquakes without the failures we experienced
here after the Nisqually quake
- poorly lit exterior areas and parking lots
- unsafe student pickup and drop-off areas
- inadequate on-site parking for daytime and evening use
- bus loading zones located on neighborhood streets
- antiquated electrical system that is in need of replacement
It's about the educational environment we provide:
- small classrooms with inadequate lighting and power
- poor quality science labs
- small library with limited space for books
- technology shop classes that must restrict enrollment because of safety concerns
- crowded cafeteria which must also serve as a student commons
- limited spaces we provide for band, choir, drama, and music
- additional restrooms needed for student and visitor use
It's about the building infrastructure:
- flat/near flat roofs with roofing materials that are beyond their useful life
- school additions that were poorly connected and are settling at different rates
causing roofs not to drain, walls to crack, and hallways to have cracks where one
edge is above the other
- many classrooms built when having two electric outlets was considered a luxury
- high cost of maintaining obsolete equipment and infrastructure
- the site drainage problems where hard rains flood into the air handling system