HIGH SCHOOL BOND PLAN TO GO BEFORE SCHOOL BOARD

By Chris Cook - Forks Forum Editor

A final plan for the proposed second phase expansion of Forks High School is scheduled to be presented to the Quillayute Valley School District (QVSD) board on Tues., July 22.

The school board is holding a special meeting beginning at 5 p.m. that day to hear a presentation on the plan.
The presentation is to begin with a background briefing by QVSD Superintendent Diana Reaume, followed by Tom Bates from the Tacoma-based architecture firm BLRB, who will discuss design details. The BLRB firm specializes in designing school facilities, and has decades of experience in the field in Washington state.

Bates is to be followed by Jon Gores of D.A. Davidson of Seattle who will discuss funding details.
A citizens’ advisory committee formed to work with architects from the BLRB firm in drawing up the plan is being led by Randy Mesenbrink, and is slated to provide the final part of the four-part presentation.

“I think we’ve come up with a good plan,” Reaume said in an interview held at the school district office on Thursday. “BLRB spent a lot of time with the Forks community. They want this to be the Forks community’s plan, something that will work for the people.”

She said Bates and John Wegener from BLRB were effective in advocating for the project with the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), “to get as much state matching funds as possible.”

The meeting is being held in the school board’s meeting room located in the Auto Tech Center on South Forks Avenue.
The QVSD  board is scheduled to make a final vote on the bond proposal on Tues., July 29. If the board approves the plan the bond issue must be filed with the Clallam County Auditor’s office by Aug. 12 in order to appear on the ballot for the Nov. 4 general election.

The construction is estimated to cost about $18 million, with almost $7 million in matching funds coming from OSPI.
An additional $3.5-$4 million may be added to the bond proposal to pay for replacement of Spartan Stadium and for laying down a synthetic football field at the stadium.

The high amount of matching funds is due to the large number of online students using Insight School of Washington for their high school education. The online school falls under the governance of QVSD.
However, Reaume has told the school board that changes to state school funding regulation will likely remove that benefit during the 2009 session of the Legislature.