PORT TOWNSEND — Public meetings on a proposed bond measure to finance replacement of aging Grant Street Elementary School are planned Saturday and next Wednesday.
The Port Townsend School Board expects to finalize Nov. 23 plans for presenting voters with a bond measure on the Feb. 11 special election ballot.
The bond, which would be no more than $40.98 million, would fund construction of a new elementary school on the present Grant Street Elementary property and retrofitting of the Port Townsend High School so it is compatible with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the superintendent.
“We are not asking for frills,” said Superintendent David Engle.
“With the establishment of all-day kindergarten, we are maxed out at Grant Street, where the faculty lounge is on a stage.”
Public meetings are scheduled for discussion of the Grant Street project from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday.
Both will take place at the school at 1637 Grant St.
Illustrations of what the new school could look like and how it would fit into the neighborhood will be on display at the meetings.
The School Board will determine the exact bond amount and ballot wording when it meets at 6 p.m. Nov. 23 in the Gael Stuart Building, 1610 Blaine St.
Bond measures require 60 percent plus one vote for approval.
Engle said the new school would be constructed on the current athletic field, a raised area behind the Grant Street school, which was built in 1956.
Engle said the target goal for a new school would be about 60,000 square feet, but that depends on cost projections.
If voters approve the bond and the new building is built, students would be moved into it and the old one, which is 59 this year, would be demolished.
Along with construction of a new school, district officials hope to reconfigure the grade structure.
Grant Street, which currently houses students in preschool through the third grade, would add fourth and fifth grades.
Blue Heron Middle School would lose the fourth and fifth grades and adopt the traditional middle school configuration of sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
Grant Street school currently serves about 450 students in the core program, a special needs program and preschool.
Engle hopes the new school would open for the 2018-19 school year, when the current kindergarten class enters the third grade.
Tentative plans for the new school, developed by Integrus Architecture of Seattle, feature an interior courtyard accessible by all the classrooms, a library that frames the entrance to the courtyard by forming a bridge between two school wings and a layout designed to bring natural light into the building.
Retrofitting the old school is not an option, Engle said, because it would cost less to build a new school than to repair the old building.
This year, the school added a fifth kindergarten class.
That required moving the reading room into the location used by the staff lounge, which was relocated to the food service room.
Students now eat in the hall or in their classrooms, which interferes with teachers preparing lessons in their classrooms because the students need supervision, said Lisa Condran, the school’s principal.
Engle said the district’s biggest task during the construction period would be changing the grade configuration.
“We need to unify the staff, as these grades have been separate for many years,” he said.
“We have two years to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.”
Engle said the bond issue would increase property taxes only slightly because of the retirement of a four-year capital levy approved in February 2012.
The school’s plans for a new elementary school are posted at www.ptschools.org.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
