Look for the Silver Lining

The last time I wrote a blog that didn't have anything to do with the COVID-19 pandemic was on February 27th, when I wrote the article, 'There are no Gradebooks at Work'. In the 13 week interim, there have been an equal number of posts providing you with updates, communication regarding our learning program; heck my graduation speech even leaned heavily on the new world we find ourselves living in! Sure, there have been hopeful messages, and last week we even talked about the return of high school summer athletics. But for the most part it has been all coronavirus, all the time. This week, even though today's post once again is dominated by the verbiage of a pandemic, I wanted to take a different approach. Look for the silver lining.

During our shutdown, we have been making steady and significant progress on our Phase III construction project. When our students were last here we had planned on finishing the demolition of the current elementary office and converting it to a classroom over spring break. You may remember during parent teacher conferences when we temporarily relocated the elementary office to the old preschool classroom? The whole idea was to move up this portion of the project to give our contractors additional time to complete their work over the summer construction season. We knew this summer was going to be very tight so it was important to provide as much flexibility as possible while realizing a short term inconvenience in our daily operations was a small price to pay. I remember when I gave the go ahead on this portion of the project and being very clear: you have one week and one week only. If I only knew then what I know now! Then, when the four week shutdown was announced I granted permission to move ahead with the next part of the project. In this case that included  the removal of the exterior wall that joined the new addition with the old. The caveat, once again was that they had to make sure it was finished in four weeks because we were planning to reopen school again before the end of the year.

Needless to say, our schools didn't reopen this spring. But it did provide us with valuable time in which to keep our project moving forward. As I walk around the district now and monitor the progress that is being made I do wonder, how on earth would we have managed to get all this done over a very tight and unforgiving summer construction widow? I have no doubt that it ultimately would have come together, but it would have been a punishing and grueling process!

In this photo to my right, I am standing just outside the doorway of the middle school auditorium looking back through the new addition. To my left is the new 'grand staircase' that leads to the competition gym. The ADA compliant stairs allow a large volume of traffic to enter and exit the gym after events. At the same time, this space could serve as an extended learning space with the classroom teacher standing at the bottom facing the stairs. To the left and out of view is an accessible lift for those who have difficulty navigating the stairs. Immediately behind the contractor is the new concession stand. In the distance you can see the main entrance to the facility. I'll save a photo from the other direction for another time, I kind of want to keep the view from the entrance a surprise!

Finally, this photo below depicts the competition gym. While not technically part of our renovation project, it is something that we had been hoping to address this summer. What you see in this photo is the demoltion of the bleachers. A big thank you to the booster club for handling this aspect of the project! Over spring break we replaced the lights in the gym. Obviously we are planning to replace the bleachers, but before that happens we'll be painting the gym.