Voters to decide fate of $14 million Bigfork High School expansion

Space is in short supply at Bigfork High School, which is why the school district is asking voters to approve a $14 million bond request in a mail-ballot election to build an addition and remodel the facility.

The proposed construction project will encompass approximately 24,000 square feet of new construction and renovation of the existing building, along with the wood and auto shop building.

The proposal adds eight new classrooms, maximizes space of existing classrooms, expands the gym, adds four locker rooms and relocates the library to the first floor, among other changes.

The project also includes upgrades that would bring the building up to code with fire and safety regulations and in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Renovations make up an estimated $5.4 million of the $14 million project.

“We’re subject to all those codes once we touch the building,” Bigfork School District Superintendent Matt Jensen said during a tour of the high school July 30.

Facility improvements are not being driven by enrollment growth, but rather in part to a lack of adequately sized classrooms for the current student population. Storage rooms and closets have been converted into classrooms and offices.

With no classroom for health class, for example, students meet on the bleachers in the gymnasium. Three high school classes meet in the elementary/middle school and use their facilities including a computer lab.

“We want all of our high school classes back in the building,” Bigfork High School Principal Alan Robbins said.

One of the high school classes held in the elementary/middle school includes Life Skills for special-education students. Special-education aide and parent Leslie Stodghill said it creates a separation between Life Skills students and their peers.

“They’re not a part of activities like hearing the daily bulletin,” Stodghill said. “Some would come over here [the high school] for some classes, but still, there’s a disconnect.”

Stodghill’s husband, Brad, a local business owner, said he is passionate about seeing the bond pass, so much so that he had the T-shirt he was wearing made to read “voteyes4bigfork.com.”

The additional classrooms would ensure high school classes housed in the middle school will move back into the high school and bring classes out of converted storage rooms.

One of those converted storage rooms located in the library houses special-education classes. Offering a parent’s perspective of a student with special needs, high school librarian Scarlett Sherman said the converted classroom is not appropriate, but understood the school was doing the best it could with available space. She also remarked that the school elevator often doesn’t work for students who use wheelchairs.

“I’ve seen a freshman student picked up by a buddy and two other people carry his wheelchair down the stairs,” Sherman said.

Another problem with wheelchair accessibility is a ramp that leads up to the gym. The ramp does not meet the Americans with Disabilities Act because it is too steep, according to K-12 special-education director Matt Porrovecchio. 

At the base of the ramp tour participants walked past a leaking water fountain. One person warned others to watch their step where water had accumulated.

“It leaks all the time,” Porrovecchio said.

Proposed plans include lowering the ramp and the entire gym floor. When the floor is lowered it will, in effect, add ceiling height. This was a feasible solution to replacing the gym floor, which has reached the end of its lifespan. Lowering the gym floor is possible because it is built above a crawl space.

Upstairs, another tour group listened to plans of relocating the library to the first floor and making it bigger to accommodate technology and group collaboration familiar in 21st-century learning.

Sherman said the library is a multipurpose room for many activities. “The space is just bursting at the seams,” he added.

Another room in need of an upgrade is a science lab on the first floor. It wasn’t hard to imagine that space was an issue after about 20 adults on the tour entered the lab to look around.

“I want you to picture in your mind 24 freshmen working in here,” Robbins said.

The most notable space eater in the lab is a hulking, metal ventilation system jutting out from a wall and connecting to two lab tables.

The band and choir room is another example of an undersized classroom, Jensen said.

“When that room is empty it looks totally appropriate, but when you put students in there with instruments it is not,” Jensen said. “It is appropriate for choir, but we need a new room for band.”

A foyer on the first floor hardly accommodates students during lunch time. Since the district’s food is prepared at the elementary/middle school and students have to walk over there to get food, proposed plans include a serving and eating area.

The plan also includes ventilation and electrical system upgrades in the wood and auto shop building located in a facility separate from the high school.

The art room is located in the building next to the wood shop. During the school year, art students battle noise from shop equipment and wood dust. On the tour, the kiln, where clay projects are fired, was covered in a fine layer of wood dust.

“We’ve done the best we can to seal the doors off, but it’s a wood shop — you get dust,” Jensen said.

 Temperature control issues were also evident during the tour. Although it was a hot summer day, one teacher remarked that it can remain uncomfortably hot well into fall and winter.

Planning for the expansion and renovation began in January. A visioning committee discussed options that ranged from “business as usual,” to starting over and building a new school, which proved to be cost-prohibitive. The result was a combination of a new construction and remodeling.

Ballots will be mailed out Sept. 18 and are due by Oct. 9.

If approved, owners of a home with an assessed value of $200,000 could anticipate taxes to increase by $69.54 annually over the life of the 20-year bond. Owners of a $300,000 home can expect taxes to increase by $104.31.

After an $11.1 million high school bond issue in failed in 2008, (run in conjunction with a successful $5.5 million elementary bond), needs remain and the timing is right to try again, according to Jensen.

“The taxable base has increased and interest rates are historically low,” he noted.

The last update to the high school was a minor expansion to build a foyer and restroom in 1999. The last major construction project completed around 1978 added the administrative main office, elevator, library and classrooms.

If the $14 million bond is approved by voters, construction could be completed by 2018.

If voters reject the bond, Jensen said the high school will continue to do an excellent job educating students with the available resources.

Tour participant Rick Baird supports the proposed construction project. He said it is one of the best proposals he has seen and commended the visioning committee. Baird is a Bigfork High School alumnus and worked for 26 years as the school librarian. Sherman, the current librarian, is his daughter. 

After mentioning other school districts that have undergone major high school projects such Glacier High School and Whitefish High School, Baird said “it’s our turn to get caught up.

“The elementary has been renovated and the middle school is fantastic, but the high school has been neglected. This is important to the community and I like what you’re saying in terms of what we can do here,” he said.

 For more information visit www.bigforkschools.org or to schedule a tour call the high school at 837-7420 or the district office at 837-7400.