School swap while kids are on break

All of La Conner’s elementary school students and most of the middle school kids will come back from winter break to new classrooms on Monday.

This week, the entire school staff has been working to move the kindergarten through fifth grade classes across Sixth Street to what has been the middle school.

Meanwhile, the middle school’s grades six and seven classes are moving across the street to the district administration building, where the eighth-grade classes have been housed all year.

The relocation project is to make way for a new middle school to be built where the soon-to-be-demolished old elementary school now stands.

All year, construction has been going on at the La Conner School District campus as part of a $20 million bond project approved by voters last year to update and renovate the schools and replace outdated structures.

For the elementary kids, the move to the former middle school building is permanent. But the middle school students can expect to move again in 2015, when their new school is expected to be complete, said District Superintendent Tim Bruce.

Meanwhile, classrooms are set up on both floors of the administration building, outside in portable buildings and in the old cafeteria on the bottom floor of the auditorium building.

“We’ve been through much worse than this,” Bruce said.

During a construction project back in 1991 and 1992, three math classes met every day in the superintendent’s office.

At least this time, Bruce said, every teacher has their own classroom, with the exception of the elementary music teacher, who goes from class to class.

Even so, “This is a big undertaking to dismantle your classroom and relocate in the middle of the school year,” Bruce said. Nevertheless, “Everybody has a smile on their face.”

Although the high school is not affected by the move right now, the entire staff has joined in the adventure. Teachers in every grade level are working in teams this week to move and set up the elementary and middle school classrooms.

In some cases, Bruce said, new friendships have formed as teachers who work at the different schools become better acquainted.

After the children return and settle into their new digs for a couple of weeks, the district and students will plan a ribbon cutting and open house so the community can see the progress, Bruce said.