Several ethernet cables run haphazardly across the roof of the Sweet Home Junior High, one of them meandering into and out of a gutter full of water and then through puddles on the roof before snaking down the side of the building and through the wall into the building.
There is nowhere else the wires could run. The roof is a single layer of lumber covered with different kinds of roofing material. Like electrical and gas lines, it has no place to run through the building except on top of the roof. The ethernet cable ends up knocked around the roof by the wind.
Maintenance Worker Jeff Parker said that he and his colleagues have found a salamander and quite a few frogs up there.
That is among the problems the School District is hoping to address in a proposed bond levy that will be before Sweet Home voters in the May 16 election.
Voters will decide whether to approve the sale of $4 million in general obligation bonds by the School District to complete major renovations and construction at Sweet Home Junior High School and smaller projects at each of the other schools in the district. If voters approve the bond, the state of Oregon will provide an additional $4 million match grant, for a total of $8 million for improvements.
The proposed bond levy would be structured to avoid increasing the current bond tax rate, $1.62 per $1,000 of assessed value. The district refinanced its 2001 bond twice, saving some $5 million in interest payments and cutting the term of the bond by 2½ years. The proposed bond would largely replace those debt service payments and extend the tax levy to the original term of the 2001 levy, with a final payment in fiscal year 2028-29.
Depending on interest rates when the bonds are sold and changes in assessed value, the district could have a final partial payment in 2029-30 and the actual tax rate could vary a little.
The key bond project will replace modular buildings at the Sweet Home Junior High, which house a multipurpose room and cafeteria, the Basic Life Skills classrooms and art classes. The modular buildings were purchased in 1970, eight years after the main building was constructed. The east wing was built in 1966.
The buildings are seriously deteriorating internally and externally, Parker said while standing in a Basic Life Skills classroom. “They are somewhat repairable. The thing is, these were just repaired.”
A year and a half ago, the room was level. Today, the floor is rippled and uneven. A corner of the foundation is rotting, and the walls are deteriorating.
It can be repaired, Parker said, but it’s expensive.
“Yes, we can live with it,” he said. “Is it healthy? I don’t believe so.”
Parker likened the situation to an old car. An older vehicle can keep going, but as problems increase, the cost of fixing them drives up the cost of keeping the car.
“At some point, you have to decide it’s time to buy a new, or at least new-to-you car,” Parker said.
Renovations will move those functions into an expanded main building, with a cafeteria overlooking Husky Field and Sweet Home.
The bond would include electrical and plumbing improvements, and it would pay for the installation of a sloped foam roof. Building infrastructure, which runs across the top of the roof today, including pipes, wiring and network cabling, will run underneath the new roofing. The sloped roof would prevent water from pooling and leaking into the buildings.
Currently, the roof slopes toward the center of the building in many locations, allowing water to puddle. In the hallways, garbage cans catch water from leaks.
The current roof itself is a single layer of lumber, with three different kinds of roofing material attached on top and no room in the roof structure itself for building infrastructure, Parker said. The different materials expand and contract at different rates in different weather. Moisture getting under them can create bubbles, which in turn can allow leaks to form.
“You can see the crazy number of penetrations in this roof,” Parker said, gesturing across a roof with large numbers of HVAC units and vents. The new roof will combine needed penetrations into the roof.
In concept plans, the office would move to the southwest corner of the main building, next to the gym. The doors around the building will be locked during the day, with access through the main doors into a safety vestibule adjoining the office, which would have a view the length of an extended south hall.
Office personnel would also be able to see who is driving into the parking lot, Parker said, and a committee is working out ways to rearrange bus and parent drop-off routes through the parking lot.
A new gym would help the school meet new PE requirements, Parker said, and the school will be able to host its own tournaments in various sports, including basketball and volleyball.
The bond would include new windows and siding to improve energy efficiency, protect the structure and update the appearance. On the south side of the main building, it would provide more natural light in classrooms.
The project would increase overall square footage, a total of 23,000, while reducing the overall footprint by removing the modular buildings, “basically unifying the entire school into one structure,” Parker said. The interior of the building would be rearranged, with the school library moving to the existing office space.
Each of the other schools, the four elementary schools and Sweet Home High School, would have a safety vestibule with a magnetically locking doors that can be opened from the adjoining school office.
At SHHS, the district would replace single-pane windows with energy-efficient windows, and it would upgrade network fiber to increase bandwidth and capacity, improve network reliability and allow existing fiber to fully support the school’s security monitoring system.
Each elementary school, Holley, Foster, Hawthorne and Oak Heights, would receive upgraded heating system controls to improve energy efficiency and reduce temperature variability to provide a more comfortable learning environment. Each would receive new hot water lines for washing hands.
The district would replace all single-pane windows at Holley, Hawthorne and Foster, and Foster would receive playground improvements.
For more information about the proposed bond, visit http://www.sweethome.k12.or.us/district/bond.php at the Sweet Home School District website or call the superintendent’s office at (541) 367-7126.
April 25 is the last day to register to vote. The county clerk mailed long-term and military ballots on March 31. The clerk will mail out-of-state ballots on April 17, and April 26 is the first day for the clerk to deliver local ballots to the Post Office.