Drilling, hammering, welding — students at MVHS have been listening to the sounds of construction for most of the year. As much of the construction comes close to completion, principal April Scott explains the effects that the completion of the new building will have on the classroom locations of many teachers.
El Estoque: When is all the construction going to be finished and when are all the teachers going to be moved?
April Scott: We currently have four classrooms being built and as part of the ultimate construction project, which will span probably three and a half years, the classrooms are estimated to be finished around Aug. 3, and [the teachers] will move into their new classrooms right afterwards
EE: Which teachers are moving and where are they being moved to?
AS: We want to move, business teachers [Carl] Schmidt and [Jeff] Mueller out of the portables. So Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Mueller are moving into the campus, and what we’re doing is we’re moving them to C109 and C110, which are history teachers [Ashley] Stolhand and [Robbie] Hoffman’s rooms, so Mr. Hoffman is going to be moving downstairs in the new building and Ms. Stolhand is moving upstairs. The other thing that we’re doing is [moving] our American Studies program which is now in A112. [Before,] Ms. Balmeo also had the room next door so they had a lot more space. Their space is very limited now so we’re moving american studies upstairs in the C building — C201 and C202 side by side, 2 big classrooms … so some of them are moving down. [Economics teacher Eric] Otto is moving downstairs because he teaches economics, so we’re putting him next to Mr. Pelkey, which moves [history teacher Bonnie] Belshe out so Ms Belshe is now moving over to the new building. The last person that has to move upstairs is [math teacher] Joe Kim, so he’s moving upstairs to the new building.
EE: How was the placement of the teachers determined?
AS: It was not a matter of teachers bidding for them or requesting them. It was a matter of, as we moved people, where would the logical place [be] to move them so that they would be close to their colleagues.
EE: What was the reason for all the movement?
AS: The main purpose is to make it so we can get rid of the portables. Next year there is going to be major construction in the gym and as part of the construction in the gym, we’re completing the second floor and leadership is going to go up there so leadership automatically has a new place to go. We now just have to wait for that to be done and [once] leadership moves up, business has to move out. Once the portables are empty, they literally disappear — the portables will be hauled away.
EE: What made all this construction happen now?
AS: It’s very expensive, so we had to pass a bond measure, which is tax dollars that generate this. That was two years ago that a bond measure passed. Once we have the dollars approved by the bonds, the process of spending becomes a little time consuming because we have to meet with architects [and] we have to finalize plans. We really can’t start a lot of these plans until we for sure have the dollars there to utilize so there was a little bit of a gap from the time the bond passed to the time we are actually able to implement the construction project.
