PORT ANGELES — Port Angeles High School is well cared for but worn out after 61 years and tens of thousands of students, according to Nolan Duce, director of facilities for the Port Angeles School District.
“There is wax on the floor and paint on the walls,” Duce told about a dozen people who took a tour of the school before a community forum this week.
However, the school needs either extensive work to bring it up to current code standards and modernization to make it usable for current equipment needs, or to be replaced, he said.
Six of the 10 buildings on the campus at the 39.7-acre sloped campus at 304 E. Park Ave. were built in 1953, two in 1958 and two in 1978.
There are also six portable classrooms that have been in use on the campus since the 1990s.
Low scores
During a 2007 inspection of the buildings, the structures received scores as low as 25.5 out of a possible 100 score, with the newest structure receiving a 56.4 rating.
The School Board has worked for more than a year to determine if, and how, a new school should be built to replace the district’s aging buildings.
The board will meet to hear a Capital Facilities Bond Committee recommendation on the project options at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 at Jefferson Elementary School, 218 E. 12th St.
McGranahan Architects of Tacoma, hired to design the school-replacement project, estimated a replacement for the entire school would cost $118 million, or $99 million if the existing gymnasium is left untouched.
The tour did not include the 51,379-square-foot gymnasium complex.
Upgrades and modernization for the school have been estimated to cost 85 cents on the dollar compared with the cost of replacement.
On Tuesday, Duce led the tour to the orchestra room, which he said wasn’t designed well for music performance.
DIY acoustics
In an attempt to improve acoustics in the room, cardboard drink holders from fast-food restaurants have been stapled to the walls, and ceiling tiles have been removed.
It has no fire-detection system, and the noisy ventilation system is often turned off so the musicians can hear themselves, Duce said.
Under the school’s walkways, 61-year-old tunnels carry conduits, piping and steam heating systems.
“The tunnels have shifted in some places and cut off systems,” Duce said.
He showed an example of a water pipe, dug up from under the concrete floors, that had built up a solid block of mineral deposits.
Many of the classrooms throughout the school have individual heating systems, each of them aged and inefficient, and classroom electrical systems are inadequate for modern educational equipment and computers, he said.
In the art and science building, he showed where the classrooms have asbestos floor tiles and countertops.
Dampness creeps in
In the two-story language arts and social studies building where the lower floor is built into a hillside, teachers run multiple dehumidifiers to stem off moisture issues in classrooms.
The 1,122-seat auditorium — known as the Port Angeles Performing Arts Center — is worth saving, Duce said.
“We’ve got a world-class facility here,” he said, noting that current plans would leave the auditorium in place and upgrade the building.
However excellent the acoustics, it can be inhospitable for those who attend theater and concert events.
Guests with limited mobility have few entrances — two doors near the stage — and the ramps to seats are too steep, Duce said.
While the auditorium can seat more than 1,000, there are only a handful of bathroom stalls, and none is handicapped-accessible.
It also has serious deficiencies in seismic stability and plumbing and heating systems.
Duce pointed out where cement blocks used in the construction of the auditorium are leeching out minerals, causing both interior and exterior damage to the walls.
The blue tile floor in the staircase is maintained with a thick layer of wax to seal away asbestos in the tiles, he said.
Like the auditorium, the shop class buildings have walls that are blistering as minerals leech out of the cement blocks, and one of the building’s blocks is seismically unstable, Duce said.
He said the vocational education programs — automotive shop, automotive body, wood shop and machine shop — have run out of space for machinery necessary for training, and the electrical system cannot handle additional loads.
Lack of space
A forge was installed in the main classroom of the machine shop due to a lack of space in the crowded workshop.
“There are new tools they would like to use in this shop, but they do not have the space or power for it,” Duce said.
Similarly, the crowded wood shop is “tapped out on tools,” he said.
An aged under-floor dust-control system built to remove sawdust from the air has been supplemented with a newer overhead system, and Duce said the two combined still aren’t adequate.
Steve Methner, co-chairman of Port Angeles Citizens for Education, accompanied the tour and said new, larger vocational classrooms are needed to prepare students for work.
“We are a blue-collar town. We need to teach our kids to make things,” Methner said.
“As America moves toward being able to make things again, we need to be ready.”
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
