'We need better': Sheridan school leaders detail repairs, updates that would come with bond passage
The detached gym at Sheridan’s Faulconer-Chapman School is so humid that cotton candy reportedly melted at one of the fall festivals, Superintendent Dorie Vickery said on a recent tour of the school district’s facilities.
Disrepair is visible throughout the building, including signs of water damage, an out-of-commission door leading to the main building that has latching issues and pieces of hardwood missing after years of wear-and-tear.
“It needs to be completely renovated,” Vickery said about the building as a whole. “This gym is used all day long for K-5 PE. We have instructional minutes of PE required from the state and our fear is that in a couple of years if we don’t do something this building could be condemned as being unsafe for students.”
A remodel of the gym is among several facility upgrades the district is asking voters to help finance with approval of a $6 million bond on the May 20 special election ballot.
Should the bond pass, the district will receive a matching $6 million grant from the Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program for facility improvements.
The district recently offered facility tours for residents, led by Operations and Facilities Manager Sean Vesper, but very few signed up.
A focus of the bond is safety and security improvements, including paging, clocks and intercom devices, access control at school entries, updates to security systems and exterior lighting at both Falconer-Chapman and the high school.
The front entrance to the high school would be renovated to feature a vestibule — a small foyer where guests will wait for a staff member to allow them into the school.
The district hopes for a similar upgrade at FCS in the future, but that was not included on the current project list.
Vickery said upgrades to the high school’s communication system would allow the “school to shut down with a swipe of a badge,” Vickery said, should a lockdown be needed.
Currently, any emergency information is communicated by staff through radios. They hope to build a system with wired-in electronic reader boards in the hallways, clocks in classrooms and new cameras.
“It’s not necessarily that we need more, we need better,” Vickery said.
The camera software is 10 years out of date, and the cameras are even older, Vesper added. If an incident in the parking lot is recorded, zooming in and getting more identification information, such as license plates, is not possible with the current software, he said as an example
Vickery noted there have been instances in the lot and they have not been able to identify the individuals or license plates involved.
Additional cameras could be used to monitor the ball fields and at FCS the playground.
“We’ve had people pull back the fence and hang out in the baseball dugout at night,” Vesper said, adding there are no cameras at the ball fields. He noted it’s not just transients, but teenagers as well trespassing.
At the front of the high school there is only one light pointing toward the parking lot, making the area hazardous at night.
“There’s no exterior lighting, it’s awful,” Vickery said about the parking lot. “I’m so afraid of people tripping.”
Pavement in the front bus loop continues to deteriorate after several patch jobs, and several large potholes in the northern parking lot near Sheridan Building Materials are nicknamed “axle breakers.”
Vesper also wants to see bollards in front of and on the side of the school, near the transformer, to stop a stray or ramming vehicle.
On the south side of the detached gym, the district hopes to build another parking lot for sporting events.
A rolling gate has been added between the main building and the new gym for additional security and to keep students out of the parking lot during school hours.
“As much as we’ve been able to, we’ve added security features,” Vickery said.
Passage of the bond would renovate the high school science class, taught by Bryan Coyle.
The tile floor, like many of the high school classrooms, contains asbestos. Additionally, the science lab is not rated for chemistry labs, due to faulty plumbing and no ventilation.
“If you try turning on the gas, you’ll gas out the art room,” Coyle said about the science lab stations. “If the sinks turn on, they don’t turn off, which requires me to bring a screwdriver to shut off.”
Since most of the sinks are clogged and one leaks into the cabinets, Coyle has stopped using them. The cabinet tops are not rated for a science class as they absorb chemicals.
With all these factors, Coyle has to teach chemistry from a theoretical approach.
“We teach how to balance equations, but don’t mix chemicals,” he said. Students must do lab work only with household materials that require no cleanup. “You can’t mix materials that might potentially release gas in an open classroom.”
Coyle can demonstrate limited lab examples from the front of the room, but usually the class watches videos of chemical reaction and science labs.
Other high school improvements listed on the bond include roof repair and replacement on school and gym and lighting and other interior updates.
Similar repairs would be made at the Faulconer-Chapman School main building, along with HVAC upgrades and a refinish of the main gym floor.
The old detached gym serves K-5 PE and houses the middle school music department. The original locker rooms are now used for storage. Renovations to the building if the bond passes would include:
- Soundproof and update the music wing on the north side;
- Improving the old locker rooms and restrooms to be proper storage;
- Gym floor and interior renovations;
- Roof restoration;
- Exterior lighting;
- Paint and lighting in older gym.
Vesper said because the building is a tilt wall design and has “good bones,” it would stand the test of time. However, he’s concerned about mold, leaks and the roof moving forward in the Oregon climate.
“The Red Cross also wants to use this as a shelter,” Vesper said, but noted it needs to be renovated before he’d feel comfortable housing residents in a time of emergency.
Vickery added that since FC is so large and since it is on the hill, it would be the primary location to house Sheridan residents in the event of a flood.
Many of the doors and fixtures are in disrepair. One of the western doors leading to the main building is permanently closed, as it has issues latching.
The boiler is from 1981 and will need to be updated soon.
“It’s hard to source the parts,” Vesper said. “And when certain parts start wearing out, they can’t be replaced and it won’t be long before it will start failing inspections”
The district recently installed updates to the fire alarm system, and a sub panel is in the boiler room. The previous panel wouldn’t reset after fire drills.
“Which means we were stuck on fire watch until we could reset it,” Vesper said. “So we had to bite the bullet and replace (the panel) just to stabilize it.”
If the panel can’t reset, the district would not be alerted if a fire occurred.
“At that point, someone has to man the building and babysit,” Vesper said.
On the south side of the gym building, a large portion of the locker rooms have been paneled off for about 1,300 square feet of storage. Students use the middle school locker rooms in the main building instead.
The toilets are available; however, one of the urinals is permanently closed.
“We think the line has collapsed in the ground.” Vesper said, motioning to the plastic wrapped urinal. “But we can’t just pull the urinal, because it is set in the concrete. They poured the concrete around it.”
The remainder of the locker room space is a make-shift dimly lit storage area. The old showers are packed with middle school football equipment.
The old laundry room still has a washer unit, but it isn’t installed. Various other district and club sports supplies line the walls with peeling yellow paint.
Securing the storage area is also a concern, Vesper said, as old lime concrete is eating away at the steel in the back. Staff has chained the door closed to prevent it from falling in on itself.
To the north side of the building is the band and music rooms.
The high ceiling rooms lack soundproofing and teachers are concerned with sound volumes for students. The rooms become swelteringly when students pile in. The carpets are patched throughout with tape and water damage is visible in the corners.
In past iterations of the bond, the old high school gym was listed for a complete renovation.
“Unfortunately, that came with a huge price tag,” Vickery said.
The gym is located inside SHS and was condemned briefly in the 1990s when the roof shifted after an earthquake. Six pillars were installed allowing the gym to be used again, but since the pillars are placed on the basketball court, the space is unusable for sporting events.
The gym is used as a student gathering place during lunch, batting cages and practice space for cheer and wrestling teams. It’s also regularly used by community groups for events like blood drives, memorials and club sport activities.
A $16 million bond was denied by voters three times: in November 2022, May 2023 and May 2024 — the last bond failing by 85 votes.
The district shifted course to propose the current bond focuses on classroom improvements and safety. The $6 million matching grant is an increase of $2 million from one attached to the last bond, allowing the district to further reduce its ask of the residents.
The last approved school bond was in 2014, a $2.1 million bond to renovate bathrooms, heating system, removal of asbestos tiles in hallways and common areas at the high school, and safety doors at both schools.
In 2003, voters approved an $8.5 million bond to build the new Faulconer-Chapman School which expanded from 4-8 to K-8. The old Chapman school was burned in a fire training exercise in 2005.
Should the bond pass, the district will have an oversight committee to review bond expenditures and ensure the bond projects are implemented as voters intended.
For more information on the bond and to get an estimate on your potential monthly tax from the bond calculator, visit www.sheridanbond.org.
Comments