While Olympic Peninsula Academy staff and students wait to move into new temporary housing, Sequim Schools Superintendent Gary Neal went over the district’s plans for the alternative education program. However, many questions remain for parents and staff.

Neal met with the Olympic Peninsula Academy (OPA) Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) Board, staff and parents on Aug. 15 to address questions and concerns about the program’s new housing which consists of one large single classroom portable and five double classroom portables Sequim School District purchased from Central Kitsap School District July 14 and 15.

OPA students and staff are being displaced into the portables while the district continues its capital projects building a new central kitchen in the west wing of the Sequim Community School while the rest of the building is deconstructed and eventually demolished by mid-December.

“We are pleased with the facility we got and we’ll do the best we can for you,” Neal said to the group on Aug. 15.

“OPA is going to continue on and spread opportunities for our kids.”

Neal said the district is doing its best to honor the three important “takeaways” OPA PTO board members, staff and parents voiced at the listening sessions in January when several options for the Sequim Community School and central kitchen were being considered by district officials and the school board.

The three “takeaways” Neal referred to were keeping OPA classrooms close together, keeping the classrooms close to Sequim Middle School and High School and the classrooms needed to be in a usable and adequate working environment for staff and students.

A few of OPA’s portables are located on West Fir Street next the high school’s band and choir room and the rest of the portables are along West Alder Street and North Second Avenue.

Neal said the portables are tentatively set to be ready for staff and students for the program’s Otter Days on Thursday, Sept. 6, which serves as an orientation, open house and mandatory meeting for staff, students and parents. The program starts its first day of classes on Monday, Sept. 10.

Questions, concerns

Parents and staff asked Neal where students would play at recess, eat lunch, and if the portables will be ready by the start of school.

One parent asked during the Aug. 15 meeting if health, safety, sanitation and food could be the district’s main priorities when it comes to getting the portables ready for OPA.

Rebecca Bullard, a first, second, third and fourth grade teacher for OPA and a parent, expressed her concern for children in younger grades walking from portable classrooms to the bathrooms in the high school’s band and choir room building on West Fir Street, where OPA students are tentatively set to use bathrooms.

“Little kids can’t wait (for the bathroom),” Bullard said.

She and other staff and parents also expressed concern for younger OPA students mixing with possible older high school students.

Bullard’s 11-year-old daughter and OPA student Georgia, also asked Neal if the teachers would have enough time to set up their classrooms before the program’s first day of school. Bullard said (in an interview) that while she waits for the portables all her classroom supplies are sitting in her living room while a definite date is set to move into the portables.

“We have to be patient and wait and see what happens,” Bullard said.

Neal said if the portables are not ready to be moved into by the program’s first day of school the district is looking into finding a local church to house OPA staff and students as a back up plan. He also said the playground on West Fir Street and North Second Avenue where OPA students used to play is closed now but it should be accessible again when the central kitchen is built and the building is no longer being deconstructed, which is set for mid-December or January.

“There’s so many variables I don’t have control over, but we’re doing everything we can do get (OPA) in,” he said.

In-house discussions

A few meeting attendees, such as Kim Glasser, another OPA teacher, suggested that certain details for OPA can be discussed “in-house” between staff, parents and board members, while the district gets the portables ready.

Mark Willis, former Sequim High School assistant principal, was appointed by the district as OPA and Sequim Options School’s principal in December of 2017 when OPA’s former principal Randy Hill was hired as the district’s Executive Director of Human Resources to fill Paul Wieneke’s position.

Willis said many of the specific details of how OPA will operate in the portables can be discussed and figured out once the classrooms and facilities are ready.

“We don’t have a facility yet,” he said. “We can talk about the plan and get staff together and take a look once the facilities are ready.”

Kaylene Byrne, OPA PTO vice-president, said she would like to request weekly updates from the district on the portables to create a better mode of communication.

“While there was not a lot of firm answers, I think parents appreciated being able to ask questions,” Byrne said in an interview.

“I think parents felt supported,” Julie Carrizosa, OPA PTO president, said in an interview.

“I think a lot of the anxiety (parents felt) was because they didn’t know what was happening.”

John McAndie, the district’s maintenance and operations supervisor and director of facilities, said the portables are being stitched together and are on their permanent foundations.

He said portables still need electricity hookups, roofing to be finished, pull-in and drop-off parking and regular parking established, and the district also may need to get approval from the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries which could take some time.

Neal said the district is waiting to receive permit approval from the City of Sequim so it can move forward in getting the portables ready for OPA.

School Board updates

On Aug. 20, the Sequim School District Board of Directors approved (with director Robin Henrikson absent) several new hires in the district at the Monday board meeting, including classified employment to Leanne Felts as a psychologist in the district, Norma Gorham as a stem specialist at Greywolf Elementary School (.2 FTE), and more (see at sequimschools.org under school board, current agenda, consent agenda).

The board also accepted the resignations of bus driver Karen Arnason and Samantha Troxler, paraeducator and McKinney-Vento liaison.

The board also approved and adopted at second reading required observances and at first reading language changes to a policy regarding freedom of expression on district campuses.

Sequim High School principal Shawn Langston and assistant superintendent Jennifer Maughan announced during their English Language Arts (ELA) presentation and update that the high school may be looking into different ELA curriculum from August through October.