Schools set laundry list of summer building projects

Published 3:30 am Wednesday, June 24, 2026

A number of projects are on tap for Sequim School District this summer, including a new cold potable water line at Greywolf Elementary in Carlsborg.

Roof replacement at Sequim Middle School and the portables at Greywolf and Olympic Peninsula Academy are underway now along with routine preventative maintenance and upkeep at district schools.

Planning for the district’s $146 million construction bond remains ongoing as well with security upgrade installation approved for the middle school, and design and engineering contracts for Greywolf’s new cafeteria, HVAC system, and parking lot.

“It’s safe to say it’s going to be a very busy summer,” Mike Santos, director of facilities, said on June 15 at the Sequim school board director’s meeting.

Replacing the cold water line for Greywolf has taken more than a year-and-a-half, Santos said, with work expected to begin soon and be completed before school begins.

School board directors approved a contract on June 15 with Columbia Allied Services for $127,460 for the work.

Santos said in an interview that it will be a “huge relief” to finish the project after it went to bid four times.

The Department of Health tested Sequim School District’s sinks for lead at various points in 2024 and identified sinks above an allowed threshold, thus requiring the district to either shut down the sinks or make them hand wash only depending on their levels.

At Greywolf, 16 sinks were identified with three shut off entirely and 13 converted to hand wash only, Santos said.

Three were replaced at Sequim High School due to fixture problems, he said, and one was fixed at the middle school.

OPA and Helen Haller Elementary did not require remediation, Santos said.

He said the district signed up immediately for required testing, and once test results came in, they provided a mitigation plan to the state, which included pipe replacement.

As for the project’s delay, he said the first time it went to bid it didn’t receive any bids, he suspects because the project involves drywall work, while the second time bids were more than $1 million, and the third time bids came in incomplete.

For the fourth solicitation, the district’s bond construction manager The Wenaha Group used a direct solicit process to reach its partners, general contractors and plumber contacts to bid.

Santos said the district also reduced the scope of the project to include only cold water and not replace restroom plumbing.

For more specifics on DOH’s lead testing, visit https://doh.wa.gov/community-and-environment/drinking-water/contaminants/lead/lead-schools.

More Greywolf projects

School board directors also approved contracts on June 15 to replace Greywolf’s clocks and intercom for $59,500 and its fire protection panel and device replacement for $215,600 with Bird Electric. These are funded by the district’s 2021 capital level, which collected its last funds earlier this school year.

Levy dollars are also helping replace a rotten wood ramp and stairs at the school with a new aluminum ramp/stair system.

Staff plan to paint and repair siding, gutters, and more elements on the school’s portables, and they’ll replace lighting with LED bulbs using rebates from Clallam PUD that Santos said will reduce electrical lighting costs by 80%.

As for the school’s bond funding elements, school board directors approved an approximate $1.06 million contract with Mahlum, which is designing Sequim High School’s renovation and the Ramponi Center for Technical Excellence building, to design and engineer improvements at Greywolf.

Those include a new 6,000 square foot cafeteria, HVAC system replacement, and civil upgrades to improve parking, drop-off/pick-up circulation and bus loading operations.

Other notable projects

• Staudt Electric was approved with an approximate $165,000 contract to install a new fire alarm system in the district office and auditorium using capital levy funds.

The district will also install new components for the auditorium’s sprinkler system with another contractor. Santos said once the new fire protection systems are installed, they’ll be open source, so various contractors can fix them as needed, which should reduce operating costs.

• The middle school’s security contract under bond proceeds was approved by board directors with Security Solutions Northwest of Bellingham for $400,000 to install a new video surveillance system, access controls, an intrusion detection system, and implement a new door access control system.

• Santos noted on June 15 that the district will water its playfields using irrigation water. In an interview, he said the district completed a project last spring to access the district’s irrigation share and began watering the fields last summer. He estimates they’ve saved about $15,000 using irrigation water rather than potable water.

• Sequim Middle School’s auxiliary gym floor is being recoated, and both that school and the high school’s bleachers, and the district’s 335 HVAC units are receiving preventative maintenance. OPA’s portables’ exteriors are also set to be painted.

• All of the schools’ soap dispensers will be replaced by a new vendor at no cost to the district. Santos said the new soap and janitorial services procurement process will save the district about $42,000 a year.

Bond/CTE projects

Santos told board members that construction of the renovated high school ($54.2 million) and new Helen Haller Elementary ($63.8 million) are still set to be built concurrently.

However, he said in an interview that’s tentative until the district receives maximum allowable construction cost for the projects.

“The heavy lifting is occurring now because we have to get the configuration right, we have to get the cost right, we have to get the features right … the value engineering has to be done before developers guarantee us price,” Santos said. “Once that’s done, then we can really sit down and figure out how we can compress a construction schedule.”

The Ramponi Career and Technical Education building, a 10,000-square-foot building with classroom space and two bays for industrial grade training, is funded separately from the bond and is set to be substantially complete by February 2028.

The high school is tentatively slated for substantial completion by July 2029 with the school’s A, B, C, D, and E buildings being replaced and connected to existing structures.

Through the voter-approved 20 year bond, the district has also budgeted about $2 million for safety and security upgrades at SMS, OPA and Greywolf, $5 million for Greywolf’s new cafeteria, $4 million for its civil work on the parking lot, and $1.62 million for its HVAC system.

Santos said they continue to seek a site for a new transportation center ($9.5 million) and they’re also beginning discussions about upgrades to the district’s stadium and field. Santos said they might not have to move the stadium as originally envisioned to expand amenities and accommodate moving utilities. He said the only bond element not being worked on is the bus loop through the district’s main campus (approximately $1.52 million) because they have to wait for the other projects to materialize.

Note: Matthew Nash has family employed by and enrolled in Sequim School District.