Worn Alternative School Gets Lift Portable Classrooms To Provide Temporary Fix, Allowing Shutdown Of Decaying Wing Of World War Ii-Era Building

Julie Green entered the decrepit lobby of Project Middle School on Friday and glanced about with dismay.

“This is your `crying out for help’ look,” the principal of Coeur d’Alene’s alternative school said, pointing to peeling paint and warped ceilings.

“This is the part that concerns us and concerns the district. This is your first impression of Project Middle School, and good things go on here.”

Project CDA, home to 250 students and growing, will receive a Band-Aid fix this summer when three portable classroom buildings arrive.

The portables have been freed by the opening of the Coeur d’Alene School District’s 10th elementary school, Skyway, in the fall. The additional space reduced other schools’ need for portables.

Beginning this fall, the seventh- and eighth-graders at Project Middle School will attend classes in the portables, and the decaying west wing of the World War II-era building will be shut down.

“If we don’t make that change, they’ll be in an environment that is not only aesthetically unpleasing, but that is environmentally and structurally not up to speed,” said Steve Briggs, the district’s finance manager.

The Project Middle School building was originally a base hospital at Farragut Naval Training Center during World War II. After the war, the building was disassembled and moved to its current site. It served as a city hospital for many years, then was purchased by the school district. It has been part of Project CDA since the alternative school opened 22 years ago.

After years of use, the building’s paint is chipped, floors are warped and tiles are falling from the ceilings. One student said when rain began to fall, he learned to just go find a bucket to catch the drops.

“You kind of got used to it after a while,” said Jim Murinko, who is now an 11th grader at Project.

Though the district did repeated repair jobs, the maintenance staff finally said the building should not be used any longer.

“It becomes an issue of throwing good taxpayers’ dollars after bad ones,” Green said. “We’re running past the point of no return.”

Though Briggs classified Project as a “high priority,” he said the district does not have the money to fix the building.

“We’ve been hopeful of doing a major renovation. The problem is that we can’t start any major projects for another couple of years,” Briggs said. “We have to have the money in hand, and we don’t have it.”

That’s because the district acquires money for such projects through ongoing plant facility levies. Money comes in gradually as taxes are collected in December and June. Briggs said the earliest the district would do the work would be 2002.

“We have the portables because of the elementary school opening,” Briggs said, “but we don’t want to give anyone the impression that it’s fixing the problems out there, because it’s not.”

Until then, Project’s 48 middle-schoolers and their four instructors will make do in the portables. Though the temporary classrooms will take up some of the playing field, they’ll actually provide more classroom space. The wing that is due to close has five classrooms; the portables provide six. The extra classroom will be used for office space and a computer lab, Green said.

“This is an upgrade, but a temporary one,” said Green, greeting each student who passed by name. “I intend to hold the district to their word that this is a temporary fix.”