Looking Back At Warsaw's Schools Construction Project
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
Kovert Hawkins is the architectural firm for the four-school construction project.
At the end of the 2003-04 school year, Warsaw Community Schools closed Claypool, Atwood and Silver Lake elementaries. Students in those schools then were assigned to the remaining open schools.
In 2008, the Warsaw School Board decided to reopen and renovate Claypool, expand and renovate Jefferson, and build new Leesburg and Madison schools. The school board approved a redistricting plan for the corporation in 2010, and all four schools were opened on time for the 2010-11 school year.
Lake said Kovert Hawkins learned about the building project through then-Superintendent Dr. Robert Haworth. When Haworth was hired by Warsaw Schools, coming from French Lick, he started contacting Kovert Hawkins in Jeffersonville. Haworth had worked with Kovert Hawkins on a previous project.
Kovert Hawkins was invited to Warsaw to do a quick investigation. The investigation spurred further conversation with school board members, principals and others, Lake said. They started to take a look at the bigger picture of the school corporation's needs. The board started talking about developing a plan to meet those needs. Several firms were contacted to help address those needs, with Kovert Hawkins ultimately being chosen.
Lake said they began with a blank canvas. They looked at the elementary schools upward. The high school was just coming off a project, so the focus became the elementary schools and two middle schools.
The elementary schools had a problem of equity. Eisenhower and Harrison were on the "upper end" of the scale, since they were the newest Warsaw schools, with Madison and Leesburg being on the lower end, Lake said. Claypool was closed at the time, and Jefferson was an exemplary school though it was packed full of people and needed work. In the middle were Washington and Lincoln, but they also needed some maintenance work.
The board developed a plan to improve the facilities of all its schools over a period of time. The priorities were the elementary schools first, middle schools second and high school third.
Step one addressed Leesburg, Madison, Jefferson and Claypool. Lake said the geographic location of the schools was key in resolving the need for classroom space because of the closing of Atwood in the northwest and Silver Lake and Claypool in the south. Many of the southern kids were absorbed into Washington, with northwestern students absorbed mainly into Leesburg and Harrison. All the schools were overcrowded.
If the Warsaw School Corp. moves forward with the other steps of the plan, it would include renovating the other elementary schools in step two, renovating the middle schools in step three and taking a look at the high school in step four. Step four could include a freshman academy. The last step would be to see if an additional elementary school might be needed because of growth of the community.
"That was the master plan. Kind of a five-prong approach," Lake said.
As the board moved forward with step one, however, the economy went south. The board moved forward anyway, knowing a solution was needed to the immediate needs of the school.
The biggest change for Warsaw on the projects was that they had single contractors instead of a series of prime contractors, Lake said. That allowed the school corporation to have more control over the project.
Lake said all three contractors were great to work with.
"In this situation, I had a really great relationship with all three contractors," Lake said.
The end result, he said, was that they got three great projects on time and under budget.
The designs of the buildings were interesting, he said. Two of the buildings were being built new, one was a renovation while students were still in school and the fourth was a renovation of a closed school.
Lake said the design of the schools was done around the schools' program needs. If the design was done around costs, the needs of the kids could be sacrificed. Lake said Warsaw did it the right way.
There were some basic points which the buildings were designed around. One was a secure entry, and another was a proper administration area.
"Those are traits which buildings built in the 1960s to '80s lacked greatly," Lake said.
The next was the separation of the primary (kindergarten to second grade) from the intermediary (third through sixth). In the new buildings, the primary are to the right and the intermediary are to the left. Each side also is divided into grade levels.
In the heart of all the schools are the shared rooms, such as art, music and the media center.
The buildings also separate the bus drop-off and car drop-off areas, as well as daily function and special events function.
Technology is an instrumental part of the buildings' designs.
"We created a 21st century classroom at the elementary schools, which have no equivalent in the state," Lake said.
He also touched on the modern aspects of the schools such as the 40-station computer labs, the efficient kitchens and cafeterias, the stages, the media centers and the energy efficiency of the schools.
Lake said he usually learns something from every project, and the WCS project was no different. With this project, he said, he learned about the strength of a community's input and direction.[[In-content Ad]]The projects also have received and been nominated for awards.
Leesburg and Madison share the same design. The schools received the 2008 American School and University Educational Design Excellence Award for Outstanding New Prototype Elementary School Design.
"It was awarded for the design, but not only is it accredited to Kovert Hawkins, but also the (schools') staff who worked closely with us," said Lake.
Jefferson and Claypool both have been nominated for the 2010 Honor Awards from the National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association for terrazzo flooring. Lake said they probably will hear in the next two months whether or not the school won the award.
Kovert Hawkins is the architectural firm for the four-school construction project.
At the end of the 2003-04 school year, Warsaw Community Schools closed Claypool, Atwood and Silver Lake elementaries. Students in those schools then were assigned to the remaining open schools.
In 2008, the Warsaw School Board decided to reopen and renovate Claypool, expand and renovate Jefferson, and build new Leesburg and Madison schools. The school board approved a redistricting plan for the corporation in 2010, and all four schools were opened on time for the 2010-11 school year.
Lake said Kovert Hawkins learned about the building project through then-Superintendent Dr. Robert Haworth. When Haworth was hired by Warsaw Schools, coming from French Lick, he started contacting Kovert Hawkins in Jeffersonville. Haworth had worked with Kovert Hawkins on a previous project.
Kovert Hawkins was invited to Warsaw to do a quick investigation. The investigation spurred further conversation with school board members, principals and others, Lake said. They started to take a look at the bigger picture of the school corporation's needs. The board started talking about developing a plan to meet those needs. Several firms were contacted to help address those needs, with Kovert Hawkins ultimately being chosen.
Lake said they began with a blank canvas. They looked at the elementary schools upward. The high school was just coming off a project, so the focus became the elementary schools and two middle schools.
The elementary schools had a problem of equity. Eisenhower and Harrison were on the "upper end" of the scale, since they were the newest Warsaw schools, with Madison and Leesburg being on the lower end, Lake said. Claypool was closed at the time, and Jefferson was an exemplary school though it was packed full of people and needed work. In the middle were Washington and Lincoln, but they also needed some maintenance work.
The board developed a plan to improve the facilities of all its schools over a period of time. The priorities were the elementary schools first, middle schools second and high school third.
Step one addressed Leesburg, Madison, Jefferson and Claypool. Lake said the geographic location of the schools was key in resolving the need for classroom space because of the closing of Atwood in the northwest and Silver Lake and Claypool in the south. Many of the southern kids were absorbed into Washington, with northwestern students absorbed mainly into Leesburg and Harrison. All the schools were overcrowded.
If the Warsaw School Corp. moves forward with the other steps of the plan, it would include renovating the other elementary schools in step two, renovating the middle schools in step three and taking a look at the high school in step four. Step four could include a freshman academy. The last step would be to see if an additional elementary school might be needed because of growth of the community.
"That was the master plan. Kind of a five-prong approach," Lake said.
As the board moved forward with step one, however, the economy went south. The board moved forward anyway, knowing a solution was needed to the immediate needs of the school.
The biggest change for Warsaw on the projects was that they had single contractors instead of a series of prime contractors, Lake said. That allowed the school corporation to have more control over the project.
Lake said all three contractors were great to work with.
"In this situation, I had a really great relationship with all three contractors," Lake said.
The end result, he said, was that they got three great projects on time and under budget.
The designs of the buildings were interesting, he said. Two of the buildings were being built new, one was a renovation while students were still in school and the fourth was a renovation of a closed school.
Lake said the design of the schools was done around the schools' program needs. If the design was done around costs, the needs of the kids could be sacrificed. Lake said Warsaw did it the right way.
There were some basic points which the buildings were designed around. One was a secure entry, and another was a proper administration area.
"Those are traits which buildings built in the 1960s to '80s lacked greatly," Lake said.
The next was the separation of the primary (kindergarten to second grade) from the intermediary (third through sixth). In the new buildings, the primary are to the right and the intermediary are to the left. Each side also is divided into grade levels.
In the heart of all the schools are the shared rooms, such as art, music and the media center.
The buildings also separate the bus drop-off and car drop-off areas, as well as daily function and special events function.
Technology is an instrumental part of the buildings' designs.
"We created a 21st century classroom at the elementary schools, which have no equivalent in the state," Lake said.
He also touched on the modern aspects of the schools such as the 40-station computer labs, the efficient kitchens and cafeterias, the stages, the media centers and the energy efficiency of the schools.
Lake said he usually learns something from every project, and the WCS project was no different. With this project, he said, he learned about the strength of a community's input and direction.[[In-content Ad]]The projects also have received and been nominated for awards.
Leesburg and Madison share the same design. The schools received the 2008 American School and University Educational Design Excellence Award for Outstanding New Prototype Elementary School Design.
"It was awarded for the design, but not only is it accredited to Kovert Hawkins, but also the (schools') staff who worked closely with us," said Lake.
Jefferson and Claypool both have been nominated for the 2010 Honor Awards from the National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association for terrazzo flooring. Lake said they probably will hear in the next two months whether or not the school won the award.
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