PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles High School students suggested a more compact classroom grouping for the school that their younger peers might someday attend during a students-only forum on school design Tuesday.
The School Board plans to place a bond measure on the February special election ballot for construction of a new high school on the 39.7-acre sloped campus at 304 E. Park Ave.
The amount of the proposed bond, estimated at $80 million to $100 million, is expected to be determined Nov. 13.
On Tuesday, more than 100 students representing the ninth through 12th grades were broken into eight groups and provided with a layout of the school property and “puzzle pieces” representing classroom buildings, music and art buildings, administrative space, athletic fields, parking areas and a retention pond.
They created several variations of a layout that they said would be more usable for students, who currently have five-minute passing periods to travel between 11 widely scattered buildings on four terraced levels.
Most student plans moved the parking onto the main campus so students would no longer have to cross the busy East Park Avenue before and after school.
They grouped the buildings mid-campus, closely spaced, leaving the athletic facilities in their current location at the southern end of the campus.
Cole Keehner, a senior, said he enjoyed the design experience but that in the end, high school students know little about architecture.
“It’s nice they are asking us, but leave it mostly to the professionals. Who knows? Maybe they will use part of my design or someone’s design,” he said.
Lynette House, a sophomore, said the design process was intense.
“It got competitive,” she said.
Additional groups of students will take turns working with the design this week.
McGranahan Architects of Tacoma, hired by the School Board to create a design concept for the proposed replacement school, has held two public forums and a staff meeting to determine what the community wants to see in a new school.
One community forum remains before the architects present their design concepts to the board.
On Oct. 14, the district will offer a public tour of the school buildings and the third in a series of community forums on school facilities.
The tour will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the school’s main office and will be followed by the forum at 6:30 p.m. in the school library.
On Nov. 13, the board is scheduled to vote on resolutions for the bond and for the district’s maintenance-and-operations levy, to be put in front of voters for the Feb. 10 special election.
Six of the 11 buildings on the campus were built in 1953, three in 1958 and two in 1978.
Engineers’ reviews of the structures’ needs have indicated that remodeling existing buildings would cost at least 85 cents for every dollar spent to build a new school, according to district estimates.
The replacement would increase the total square footage from 222,000 to 237,000.
The new facilities are expected to be built east of the existing auditorium, known as the Port Angeles Performing Arts Center, to avoid displacing students during the construction period.
Currently, the area includes a teacher parking area, tennis courts and a district-owned house.
If voters approve the bond measure, the new school likely would open in fall 2018.
It has been determined that the 1,122-seat auditorium is too large to be replaced at a reasonable cost and would be renovated.
The auditorium is used by community groups for concerts and performances after school and during summers.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
