Evergreen to build new classroom at junior high

Evergreen Junior High School will expand by one classroom this fall.

The school board on Tuesday approved a bid by Kalispell-based Robert W. Ross Construction to build a 1,180-square-foot classroom.

The district went out for bid Friday and received four responses, Superintendent Joel Voytoski said. Ross’ bid of $149,320 — about $127 per square foot — was the lowest.

The district began reviewing the need for additional space at the junior high during the last school year, Voytoski said. There are some high-needs special education students at East Evergreen Elementary who “sometimes, because of their unique needs, need a separate space,” he explained.

There is ample room at the elementary school to give those students that space, but there isn’t as much room at the junior high, Voytoski said. The new classroom will help provide necessary space.

Whether it will house regular or special education students this fall hasn’t yet been decided. Voytoski said the new room isn’t intended for a specific grade but the school “may shuffle some things around.”

There already are classrooms designed specifically to serve special education students at either end of the junior high school, he said. The classrooms have dividing walls that allow for one large room or two self-contained classrooms.

In the seventh- and eighth-grade wing, one of those self-contained rooms has been needed for regular education students, Voytoski said. Those students might move into the new classroom and free up the area they have been using for special education students.

Money for the project is coming from three sources, none of which require any additional levy or taxpayer burden, Voytoski said.

Federal stimulus money will pay for part of the project. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act designated some money specifically for special education, and that one-time-only money may be used for building projects.

District building reserve money also will be used for the addition. Evergreen’s building reserve fund began in 2000, Voytoski said.

“We’re still carrying some funds in it — the result of some pretty prudent management,” he said.

The building reserve fund also was helped by a $3.99 million bond issue voters approved in 2003 to expand the junior high and elementary schools.

“Some things that otherwise would have been done through the building reserve [fund] were done through the bond, allowing us to keep the building reserve for future needs,” Voytoski said.

The rest of the project funding will come from flexibility money, a state-created funding source intended to replace money taken off the tax rolls, he said. The state pays school districts flexibility money when funds are available, and some school funding at the end of the year can be transferred to that fund.

The three funding sources also will allow the Evergreen district to furnish the new classroom, Voytoski said.

Crews are expected to get started right away and the project should be finished around Oct. 1, he said.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.