Classes go on during renovations
The first thing junior Tiffany Panky noticed about the new weight room at Rogers High School was that the paint wasn’t chipping off the equipment.
That’s because it’s all brand-new, state-of-the-art weightlifting gear.
And what about the shiny new wood gym floor still smelling of polyurethane, and those new bleachers emblazoned with purple lettering, R-O-G-E-R-S?
“So cool,” said Panky, 16. “It definitely gives us some school pride.”
Students returning to the northeast Spokane school this week are getting a taste of what is to come.
Among the ladders, cranes and concrete trucks, the school’s $66.8 million facelift is beginning to take shape. The new gym and athletic center were completed in time for classes this fall. In January, construction will be completed on the new classroom, commons and library areas of the school. Teachers and students will then abandon the historic building facing Wellesley Avenue so it can be restored.
“We are all still looking around, getting used to everything,” said Principal Carole Meyer. “We still have a few details to work out.”
Boxes still littered second-story classrooms in the new athletic center, and old filing cabinets and olive-green appliances waited to be hauled to “rest.”
“We didn’t want to put old stuff in with the new,” said physical education teacher James Wasem.
Rogers is one of two Spokane high schools under construction this year. Demolition of the swimming pool at Shadle Park High School in northwest Spokane began this summer. The first phase of the $70.6 million project will continue all year, with construction of a new gym and remodeling of the existing gym and part of the three-story classroom wing.
Students returned this year to find they have been shuffled to portables on the school grounds and had to give up part of their common area while the new one is constructed. The inconvenience amplified the class pecking order this year.
“The seniors are the only ones that have a place to sit at lunch now,” said 16-year-old Mary Rogers, a Shadle Park junior and cheerleader. “It stinks.”
“And it’s really dusty and dirty,” added Jonathan Robin, 15.
Robin better get used to it. Shadle Park isn’t expected to be completed until the fall of 2009.
Rogers’ completion is scheduled for the spring of that year.
On the second day of classes Wednesday, construction crews were busy installing volleyball standards in the new main gym to prepare for the first competition at Rogers next week.
Because construction on the new classroom and common areas is not yet finished, students have to enter the gym from the outside. As they filed in for P.E. classes, many students craned their necks every which way.
“Kids are walking in a little more upbeat,” said fitness and health teacher Cris Coffield. “They are excited; they are not used to having something this nice.”