Harper Charter School is undergoing a major upgrade that will result in a new gym and classrooms.
Ron Talbot, Harper School District superintendent, said the $11 million project also includes adding a cafeteria, a six-room wing for high school students, a teacher lounge and a space for the district’s online school.
The project aims to solve multiple challenges the rural district has faced recently, from overcrowded classrooms to limited athletic facilities.
Talbot said the district can reduce class sizes by half when the project is finished in December. Adding a second gym, he said, will allow varsity boys and girls basketball teams to have practices on campus.
He said the district’s lone gym is shared between middle and high school boys and girls basketball.
Talbot said that some have had to practice in Ontario or Nyssa and those practices can run late into the evening.
“We get kids getting home after 9:30 p.m.,” Talbot said. He said those students have already attended a full day of school – from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. – which becomes a grueling schedule for them by the end of the season.
Talbot said the new building will be for seventh-grade students and seniors in high school. The cafeteria will be for all students.
Talbot said officials originally only sought to build a new gym. From there, he said the district considered adding a new cafeteria to address the overcrowding with having to have students take lunches at different times.
Then, the discussion expanded to adding more classrooms as the district has seen its enrollment balloon to about 150 students this year, according to Talbot. He said over the last 10 years the number has hovered at around 100.
Talbot said that the district had saved about $6 million over more than five years for the project. The district took out a $5 million loan from the Bank of Eastern Oregon at 5% interest to cover the remaining costs, Talbot said. He said it is a 25-year loan.
He said the funding is “all there” and the district is able to repay the loan.
Talbot emphasized that the district is not trying to get too big.
“The purpose of the expansion was to improve our educational opportunity for our students here now,” he said.
Talbot said the district put the project up for a bid in August. When completed the new facility will be about 26,000 square feet.
Talbot said a modern single-level building will replace the aging structure that was built in the 1930s. He noted that the district added three classrooms in 2001 and a science room in 2014. Beyond that, he said the current gym was built in the 1950s.
Talbot noted that the facility will be available for the community to use for such events and other activities.
“I think it’s going to be a great resource for Harper,” he said.
News tip? Send your information to Steven Mitchell at [email protected].
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