Measure O classrooms to open soon

With carpet and linoleum being laid and sidewalks paved, this month brings the final touches to three new classrooms on the San Lorenzo Valley Elementary School campus.
The classrooms are the first major improvements paid for by Measure O, the $18.9 million bond measure San Lorenzo Valley voters passed with more than 60 percent approval in February 2008.
The bond money will also pay to build the new library planned for San Lorenzo Valley High School.
BCI Construction Inc. performed the site work, a $345,000 contract, and the building was bought as a unit for $823,000 and transported in 13 pieces to the elementary school. Overall, the classrooms will cost a total of $1.4 million.
“I’m very happy with how it is going,” said Erik Slaughter, the district’s construction manager. “I think everything is going as planned and as we originally budgeted.”
The district has hired a half-time accountant to manage the Measure O money to ensure that everything is spent on projects, rather than personnel or school operating costs.
Two classrooms are each 1,000 square feet and boast LCD projectors, teaching walls (sliding whiteboards with storage space behind them) and natural lighting.
The 1,200-square-foot science classroom has a teacher workroom for storage, about a dozen sinks and linoleum flooring and also serves as a laboratory-style setup.
Slaughter plans to build a solar power system on the roof, with a meter that students can review.
“We want to incorporate solar panels to interact with the science classroom on some level,” he said.
Dave Grant, the school’s science teacher, will move from a portable classroom to the science room, and reading specialist and special projects teacher Georganne Cavataio will move into one of the classrooms. Which class will move into the other new space is still undecided, Superintendent Julie Haff said.
A ball wall was built behind the classrooms, with the help of a $5,000 donation from the San Lorenzo Valley Rotary Club five years ago. Two portables will soon be removed from campus, and the blacktop will be redesigned.
Library in the works
A remodel of the San Lorenzo Valley High library that partially burned in an arson fire in 2006 is set to be finished this month. The space will double as library and digital media classroom until the new library is built.
“The fire only burned a small corner of the structure,” Haff said. “The bones of the building were in good shape.”
Insurance money from the fire paid for the repair and the replacement of many of its books. The fire destroyed about $1 million in content, including 20,000 volumes, Haff said. The district will replace about half that collection and nine new iMac digital photography workstations.
Plans for a brand-new 13,000-square-foot library that will connect the middle school and high school campuses are in review by the California Board of Architects, and the district expects the plans to be approved by the end of January. If everything goes as expected, construction crews would break ground in the spring.
The building was designed by Beverly Prior Architects of San Francisco and is anticipated to cost about $8 million.
“It hinges on state approval,” Slaughter said. “At any given time, they could have something come up.”
Measure O will also pay to expand the high school performing arts center, improve security at the district’s schools, and provide playground equipment at both elementary schools.
“Every project we’ve done has come in at bid or under bid,” Slaughter said. “We’ve been able to maximize our funds. I think we’ve been very careful with the district’s money.”