Jefferson School Project Well Under WayWINONA LAKE - Of the four Warsaw Community School Corp. elementary school building projects, Jefferson is the only one where school will be in session this fall.
Madison and Leesburg elementary schools are new schools, and Claypool has sat empty since it was closed in 2004. Atwood and Silver Lake elementary schools also were closed.But Jefferson Elementary Principal Denny Duncan has been working closely with contractor James S. Jackson Co. LLC to keep interruptions to the construction as few as possible.
Tom Beccheria, superintendent for James S. Jackson Co., said the construction company is doing three jobs at once on the school. With children present, that could present a challenge. However, Beccheria said, Duncan has helped them work a lot of the planning out so the construction can be completed on time with few, if any, interruptions to the school day.
Duncan said the contractor has been great to work with and is very sensitive to the issue of children being around during the school year.
The contractor hasn't been the only helpful hand in the ongoing project.
"Grace College has really been helpful to us," Duncan said. Grace has allowed Jefferson to use parking and playground space and let school buses go through their property. "It would be very difficult without (their help)."
While some headaches are to be expected until the project is complete, Duncan said, they plan to be creative with available space. The construction work will not affect the learning process, he said, though teachers may feel a little inconvenienced at times.
Tuesday afternoon, Duncan and Beccheria provided a tour of the site.
Duncan said the 1970s section will eventually be gutted. Jefferson will still use the '70s section until the spring semester. When the new section is finished, the school will move there while the '70s section is renovated. The new section, Duncan said, is bigger than the whole old school.
The gutted area will include the media center and rooms for science, music and art once completed. Duncan said Jefferson has never had rooms dedicated just for those subjects before.
Separating the '70s section and the new cafetorium will be a new hallway. At each end of the hallway are exits.
"This is huge compared to what we've ever had before," Duncan said of the new cafetorium. The cafetorium includes a stage for events like DARE graduations and plays.
While the stage will be on the east end, the new kitchen will be on the other end. "This is way, way better," Duncan said of the kitchen.
Previously, Jefferson lunches were not made at the school. They were made at the high school and delivered. Now, the school can prepare its own meals.
The old kitchen, which was much smaller, already has been renovated to house furnaces and electrical work.
The new section being constructed at Jefferson will be the classroom area. The '50s-'60s portion of Jefferson was torn down the day after school let out to provide for the construction.
While one side of the school will include kindergarten classes and Good Beginnings Day Care, the new section will include special education and English as a second language classrooms, offices, the nurse's office and classrooms for grades one through six.
When renovations began at Jefferson, Duncan said workers found bits of the old school buried in the ground. Beccheria said it took 100 dump trucks to take away the contaminated soil from just the front end. Another 50 to 60 trucks took away contaminated soil from the backside. "It was a big process," Beccheria said.
"One big advantage we have on this job, and it's not to brag, is that we have very good subcontractors on the job," said Beccheria. Everyone working on the site, he said, works well together and does a very good job.
On the first floor of the new classroom section, near the east end, is where restrooms, a teacher work area and the nurse's medical suite will be.
"Ours is probably bigger than most because we have special education children here," said Duncan of the nurse's medical suite.
Next to the medical suite will be offices for the mental, physical and occupational health therapists. Because Jefferson has special education students, Duncan said, the school has more staff to help them.
The second floor of the new classroom wing will be upper grades. But both levels have rooms dedicated to ESL classes. Previously, ESL students all met together. With the new classrooms, fourth- through sixth-graders will meet in a classroom on the second floor while the lower grades will have a classroom on the first floor.
In total, Duncan said, there will be 21 regular classrooms, a computer lab, resource rooms, special education rooms and work areas for staff that Jefferson never had previously.
Beccheria said in the next two weeks, work on the walls will progress rapidly. Beccheria pointed out where the new school entrance will be. Duncan said the old main entrance will be used for event entrance.
There always has been a school at the Jefferson site since 1906, Duncan said. With the new construction, there will be a school at that location for more years to come.
"Every one of my teachers is just as excited about this as I am," said Duncan.
