Dear Santiam Community,
A new beginning for the Santiam Canyon campus is about to start. The upcoming work will conclude with a wonderful new campus to better serve our students, but in the meantime, we are going to have to put up with some inconveniences and change. It will be a fun process to watch unfold… and it is coming soon! Below are some key upcoming dates:
- March 3- Gerding Builders will mobilize on our campus to begin site work on the back of the Santiam Junior/Senior High School campus.
- March 23 (Spring Break)- The temporary modular classrooms will be removed from behind the gymnasium. Those teachers will be mobile and move to vacant classrooms period to period. SJSHS students will get updated information regarding the location of their classes that may be affected.
- April 2- The front playground at Santiam Elementary School will be fenced off, to begin the renovation of the covered play area into a cafeteria. SES parents, expect additional information coming out from the school regarding how this will impact morning routines.
- April 15(ish)- Street improvements will begin on Cedar St. and 4th St. Those roads will not close, but they could be reduced to one-lane one-way streets. More info coming on this. We will develop and communicate a traffic plan for this time.
We have an enormous amount of work to accomplish this spring and summer: building a cafeteria at SES, redoing the parking lot at SES, hooking up SES to the city sewer system, constructing 3 new classroom buildings at SJSHS, and street improvements around the SJSHS campus. There will be a lot of construction going on, but the end goal is worth it for our students for years to come.
Timelines keep changing, yet at this time, when school starts in the fall, we are anticipating the following:
- The SES cafeteria will be in use.
- SES will be off the current septic system and on the city sewer system
- SJSHS Building A will be complete and ready for student use.
- SJSHS Building B will NOT be ready for student use and those classes will remain in the existing school until about mid-October.
- SJSHS Building C should be substantially completed, but we may hold the opening of that building until Building B is ready in mid-October, when we could make a full shift to the new campus.
- When school starts in the fall, we may still filter students through the existing front doors of the old building to access the campus. This will allow workers to more freely work on the new campus.
- Street improvements will NOT be completed by the first day of school and will be finished around mid-October.
- Outdoor walkways, covers and landscaping will be worked on into October.
Starting in mid-October, once we move out of the old school completely, abatement and demolition of the old building will occur. We hope to have the old school removed by December so groundwork can then begin for the new gymnasium, which is slated to be done by the summer of 2021.
We have a tremendous amount of work to do, yet the outcome will be worth it. We are about to see the transformation begin.
We will keep you informed of relevant updates and changes as the timelines and picture becomes clearer. The future of Santiam Canyon is about to unfold before our eyes.
Sincerely,
Todd Miller, Superintendent