Construction of a street near Philomath Elementary School and a new covered play shed at Clemens Primary School will be mostly completed by the time school starts with both projects expected to be in the final stages, Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said Thursday night during a School Board meeting.
The road construction project that connects South 16th Street to the intersection of Cedar Street and South 17th Street is expected to be in the landscaping phase by the time students arrive for classes Sept. 2-3.
Last week, the school district met with the city and contractor.
“The conversation was that it will be finished with the exception of the grass and landscaping kinds of things by Aug. 30,” Halliday said, adding that she had noticed an uptick in recent days in the number of workers at the site.
Halliday said the school district is working with the bus company on drop-off and pick-up locations and bus traffic flow.
During a January board meeting, members opposed the idea of a raised crosswalk where the road curves as a way to keep students on the north and east side. At the same time, the raised area of the road would remain in the plans as a speed deterrent while keeping open the option of adding a crosswalk there in the future.
As it turned out, Halliday said the crosswalk would be going in after all. The area of the road is not only raised but it also narrows in that location, she said. Halliday, Eric Beasley, PES principal, and Ryan Vaughan, district maintenance foreman, came to a conclusion upon a visual inspection.
“Kids are going to cross there just because of the way that street is narrowed,” Halliday said. “So we agreed to put the crosswalk there and that’s where we’ll put our crossing guard. Because of the narrow space, that’s where they’re going to cross.”
School officials plan to monitor traffic patterns at the four-way stop at South 17th and Cedar to determine if a crossing guard would be needed in that location as well.
Several other pieces of traffic flow questions remain to be answered throughout the district, including high school congestion and possible complications involved with diverting truck traffic away from South 19th and onto South 13th.
Ryan Cheeke, board member, explained that it’s now impossible to maneuver a turn at Main and 13th because of bulb-outs that were added as part of the downtown streetscapes project.
Said Cheeke, “There’s not enough room with all the crosswalk stuff to get your big, long trucks to make the corners.”
Christopher McMorran, Philomath city councilor who was in attendance at the meeting, indicated that it was a topic to be discussed. An additional complication involves Benton County’s jurisdiction over major stretches of those streets.
Another detail of the road that board members had asked for back in January was a curb cut to ease future access to school district property on the south side. Halliday said that somehow, that didn’t get updated in the plans that went to the contractor but she added that the curb cut would be done.
The covered play shed’s construction will continue into the first week of school but Halliday said it won’t impact students. Clemens Primary will have only morning sessions for half of its student body on Sept. 5 and the other half on Sept. 6. The first two days feature student assessments with no classes. Regular, full-day classes for kindergarteners and first graders will begin Sept. 9.
“They’ve really been given another week to finish up the project,” Halliday said. “By the time we actually have students in full in the facility, our understanding is that we should be, if not done, right to that last little nth degree.”
