Climate Control

I want to continue the 'series' started last week that highlights some of items that are included in our annual 'Topics' newsletter. Again, you can get a your copy of the annual newsletter by clicking here. Last week, you may recall was focused on parking at the high school, particularly related to what students can expect during construction. I want to continue with the construction theme this week by talking about what our students and employees will experience inside the building during the upcoming school year. 

As we make final preparations for the start of school, and really for the duration of the entire school year I would encourage patience and flexibility on everyone's part. There really is no way around it: Our students and employees will be living in a construction zone this school year. The entire inside of the building is being remodeled: carpet, windows, painting, ceiling, and light fixtures are all being replaced. But that is only part of the story. Other rooms are having walls removed or moved and physical locations of long time spaces are being relocated. We have been working incredibly hard over the course of the last several months to make sure all the demolition is complete before the students arrive in a few weeks. One point that I have continually made with our contractors is that we can not have a jack hammer in operation while students are trying to learn. It just won't work. The bottom line though, is the volume of work that needs to be completed on the inside of the building alone just simply can't be finished over the course of one summer. To this point, the majority of classrooms along the west and north of the building should (emphasis added) be finished by the time school starts. Moving forward, our strategy will be to complete two rooms at a time over the course of the year. This will no doubt cause a logistic challenge as students may have class in one location one week, and then have that class move to a different location the next. We are working very hard to minimize disruptions to the regular school day, but it will be noticeable. 

That is what you are going to see, but you also have to be prepared for what you are going to feel. A big update to the building will be the replacement of the HVAC system. As discussed incessantly during our run up to the election last fall, the air conditioning system has reached end of life and the heat pumps that are currently in operation are obsolete. Replacement parts don't exist so therefore the entire system is going to be replaced. Unfortunately, that work won't commence until next summer. At the same time though, the footings and foundation for the new addition go right through the location of where the current cooling tower resides. So sometime soon, well before the start of the school year begins the cooling tower will be removed. That means we won't have air conditioning in the high school this fall. I suppose I shouldn't have picked a day in July when the heat index is expected to top 100 degrees to share that little tidbit of information! Because of this, you should not be surprised if we need to dismiss school early this fall during extreme hot spells. Keep in mind that weather related cancellations impact the entire district! In other words, we won't just dismiss the high school: we'll dismiss all students. The new system is scheduled to arrive sometime this winter and we anticipate it will be up and running this spring. 

In the short term we should anticipate some inconvenience and perhaps even a bit of discomfort. In the long term though, we'll have a building and learning environment that will epitomize 21st century learning that we will all be incredibly proud of!

Parking

I want to take some time over the next couple of weeks to highlight and underscore some of the more pertinent items that are included in our annual 'Topics' newsletter. You can get your own copy of this newsletter on the 'School Registration-Forms, Supply Lists' page of our school website. Here you can also find information about registration and a whole host of topics related to the start of the school year. And as always, please don't hesitate to reach out if there is something we can  help with! 

Today I want to spend a bit more time talking about parking for the 2023-2024 school year. Our Facebook post on June 29th garnered a few observations that I would like to explore a bit more deeply, and this also gives me an opportunity to keep the parking challenge front and center for you as we prepare for the start of the school year.

As a starting point, when preparing for this current construction project, the community task force spent quite a bit of time talking about both the issue of parking and congestion at school. Multiple options for additional parking lots were discussed as well as the traffic flow during pick up and drop off before and after school. Those who were in attendance at those meetings can attest to the fact there were/are no easy answers. 

The good news is our parking situation will improve for the 2024-2025 school year. The bad news unfortunately is this is more than a year away. Even so, I urge you not to conflate improvement with solution, particularly as we continue to grow. Once completed, the improved concept will be focused on 'angle street parking' on both Wood and School Street. Additionally, once the bus barn is removed from campus, we'll be able to capture some parking on the footprint of that former building site. All of this is going to take some time though. Once piece of good news is that with the reconstruction of Wood Street that is currently underway, we will add an additional 40 parking spots along the street. 

Our immediate concern however is the 2023-2024 school year, slated to begin just a few short weeks from now. During this construction period about half of the high school parking lot will be unavailable for student use, which means those students are going to have to park elsewhere. A key component of our plan includes the addition of employee parking behind the PK-8 facility. We now have enough parking spots behind this building to accommodate all our employees. The caveat, however is that students will not be permitted to park behind this building at anytime, before, during or after school. By adding this parking behind the facility, it will free up the north (junior  high) parking lot for students. 

As far as traffic flow is concerned, that is really a different (but related issue) as it pertains to parking. Our hypothesis is that by moving the front entrance of the high school to the west side of the building, it should improve congestion on Washington Street. However, I am not naïve enough to believe that will be a silver bullet solution to traffic flow during pickup and drop-off. It is important to remember that during these beginning and end of day pressure points, we are moving more than 900 students either onto or off of campus in a relatively short window of time. That sheer volume alone would suggest congestion, particularly when compared to the geographic footprint we are working with. This is one of the primary reasons why we continue to utilize crossing guards. Truth be told, once the underpass was completed we thought we would need one less traffic guard. That proved to be a faulty assumption when we realized one was needed at the entrance to the junior high parking lot. We can certainly improve upon this system by reminding youngsters they should only cross where these crosswalks exist. In full disclosure, I am not always a good model for this myself!

I encourage you to please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the map enclosed in today's post. Please also take an opportunity to have a conversation with your novice drivers about where they can; and cannot park. A detailed explanation of those areas can be found under the 'Parking' tab of our website. 

Registration Materials Released for the 2023-2024 School Year

Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! We are in the midst of tremendous change in our school district as construction at the high school is, and will continue to be ongoing throughout this school year and into the first part of the next school year. It is indeed a very exciting time for our district, but in this intermediate phase I’ll urge flexibility and patience. The greatest challenge this year will be adequate parking. For that reason, we have designated specific parking areas for employees and students alike. If parking is not available in one of the designated parking lots, you will have to utilize street parking. For maps outlining parking arrangements for the 2023-2024 school year, please visit www.hudsonpiratepride.com and click on the ‘parking’ tab at the top of the main page. 

Everything needed to register for the 2023-2024 can be found on our website at www.hudsonpiratepride.com. Simply go to the ‘parents’ tab and click on ‘School Registration - Forms, Supply Lists’. Here you will find all the registration material-including the ‘Topics’ newsletter. Online registration provides convenience and flexibility while streamlining the process. If you have questions please don’t hesitate to contact our office. We urge you to complete the registration process by August 1 so we can finalize schedules and class lists. In addition to large gains in enrollment we have numerous families on waiting lists to get into our district, so thank you in advance for completing the registration process quickly.

We value your input, feedback, and questions! For this reason we take our responsibility to interact with the public very seriously and strive to ensure that timely pertinent information is readily available for you, and that you have an opportunity to interact with your superintendent as seamlessly as possible. There are several ways to receive district wide communication:

The School Website hosts a plethora of information that is of value to our patrons, including staff directories, lunch menus, activities and events, and even school news. You are encouraged to become a regular user of our website, located at www.hudsonpiratepride.com.

Superintendent’s Blog is a weekly column that is generally published every Wednesday online and the following Thursday in the Hudson Herald. This column is used to share school news and locally contextualize statewide and national policy proposals. It is also used to educate our public on a variety of education related topics. You can find and subscribe to the blog at http://superintendentvoss.blogspot.com/.

To make sure you don’t miss any articles, please consider subscribing by typing your email address in the subscription box on the right hand side of the screen.

Twitter  For those of you who are tech savvy, I would also invite you to follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/anthonydvoss. This is a great way to keep up with what is going on in school, and who knows, you may even see a picture with some familiar faces from time to time!

Facebook We have also worked hard over the course of the last year to improve our presence on Facebook, which you can find at @hudsoncommunityschools All of our social media channels are accessible from the main page of our website.

Pardon Our Progress

I suppose progress is one way of putting it. I can also understand how one might look at the pictures included in this post and be led to believe we have a real mess on our hands. Truth be told, you are not wrong! But the good news this is all by design. I think there is a saying that goes something like, 'You can't bake a cake with out breaking an egg'. Well, we broke a lot of them! As I mentioned last week, we are working hard to get it right the first time, and to do so will require much patience on everyone's part. 

Patience especially of the students and faculty who will be working in a building that will be under construction for the entirety of the 2023-2024 school year. While the centerpiece of this project is the addition, of which is occurring where there will be no students; we are also remodeling the inside of the building. Our contractors are working hard on classrooms around the west perimeter of the building, but when we designed the project we knew that a lot of this work was going to occur while school was in session. Because of that, teachers will be shifting from one classroom to another as rooms are demolished and then renovated. Students of course will need to be mindful of the fact that where they meet for classes is subject to change. 

We have a good plan to manage these shifts during the course of the school year, but there is another saying that 'No plan survives first contact'. So we need to get used to a fluid environment where flexibility will be much appreciated. I've done quite a few construction projects over the years and I have had to really get comfortable with the unknown; and the realization that we are almost always perpetually behind schedule! This summer has been no different as we deal with material delays and contractors who have to wait on other contractors to show up before they can complete their work!

Perhaps our greatest challenge this year will be managing parking. Parking and traffic flow is something the task force spent quite a bit of time discussing, but ultimately it was determined that because of the way our campus is laid out there is really no viable solution. It will be better once the project is completed, but there is no magic bullet to ensure 'adequate' parking and traffic flow during drop off and pickup. It is always going to be congested. We'll continue to look for solutions and do all we can to mitigate these pressure points, but keep in mind one important point: at the beginning and end of the school day we are moving approximately 900 students on and off campus, in a roughly two block stretch.

This coming school year though, parking is going to be very challenging. For starters, about half the high school parking lot will be inaccessible due to construction. For this reason, we are designating the north parking lot as student parking. However, to accomplish this students will not be permitted to park behind the K-8 building at any time before or after school. This area is reserved for faculty and staff. The high school lot will accommodate approximately 40 cars, and by the time school starts we should have another 40 angle spots available along Wood Street. If students want these premium spots, they will need to arrive early! The good news is that by the time the project is completed we will be net positive when it comes to parking spots around campus and at the high school.

Growing pains for sure. Short term pain for long term gain. We appreciate your patience and flexibility as our construction project progresses. It is going to be a fun year to watch this unfold!