Central Middle School students return to their campus from the Milton-Freewater School District’s new classroom building on the edge of the McLoughlin High School campus. The district built the science, technology, engineering, art and math facility in part to bridge the gap between middle and high school. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)
Federal pandemic funding offered schools a rare one-time infusion of significant money.
Milton-Freewater Superintendent Aaron Duff saw it as an opportunity.
“How can we make these dollars last 100 years?” he said.
Long after the pandemic has faded into the history books, Duff hopes, the district’s new brick-and-mortar science, technology, engineering, art and math building will be serving students and reassuring taxpayers.
“We are proving to the community that if you support us, giving us your dollars, we will treat those with respect,” he said.
Duff said the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund was a “lifesaver” during the COVID-19 pandemic. ESSER put nearly $10 million on the table for the small district on the Oregon side of the state line just south of Walla Walla, Washington. Duff didn’t expect to see such a windfall again anytime soon, and he said he wanted to make every dollar count.
ESSER gave the district the extra money needed to serve students when facilities were shut down, such as adding lights to the soccer field for more outdoor events. The funds paid for safety and security features and energy-saving facility upgrades.
But what the schools really needed was more classroom space to provide healthy environments for students and to address all students’ pandemic-related learning loss. Milton-Freewater’s Student Success Act community engagement work had also identified a need to address students’ dropping out between middle and high school.
STEAM courses fit the bill, with career and technical education’s link to greater student engagement and higher graduation rates, but the district just didn’t have the room.
School leaders considered buying portable classrooms, but for a variety of reasons, they didn’t make financial or logistical sense.
Duff looked at the district’s McLoughlin High School, built in 1921, and Central Middle School, built in 1912 and added onto in 1958 and 1984, and embraced a community value of building to last.
“If you are going to have 500 students a day walk through, you need something that will hold up,” Duff said.
The district opened its 8,800-square foot, $2.8 million STEAM building in October. The building is next to the high school and across a small field from the middle school, a both practical and symbolic location.
“Where do we lose kids?” Duff said. “We lose them between junior high and high school.”
The building is designed to create connections that will guide students across that boundary where so many falter. It has four classrooms, two dedicated to junior high STEAM and two dedicated to high school art and agricultural science. A wide hallway with display cases for student work runs the length of the building.
Duff said the building’s spaces mix the students together and show junior high students that it’s not so scary to be on the high school campus. Eighth graders will have a familiar building and teachers they know nearby when they move into ninth grade. At the same time, it gives high school students more options for engaging classes.
Preliminary data and anecdotal evidence suggest it’s working, Duff said. This school year is showing an increase in freshmen completing the necessary classes to be on track to graduate and improved sixth- to eighth-grade attendance compared with last school year.
Students, though, just really appreciate the extra space.
Seventh grader Tanner Marker says “it’s more fun” when he can do lots of hands-on projects that they couldn’t do before.
Middle school science teacher Dawn Chester loves her new classroom for some of the simple things, such as more storage, plentiful power outlets and a cement floor.
“Any kind of science on carpet is not good,” she said. “Because we can do more, the kids can learn more.”
High school art teacher Marianne Smith said her spacious classroom gives her more ability to teach and display different disciplines, such as pottery. The light-filled room and ample table and counter space also create a better learning environment, she said, a factor in her choosing to teach in Milton-Freewater.
“If it makes it more welcoming for my students, that makes it more of a draw for me,” she said.
Senior Kayla Chaney wants to earn an arts program cord for graduation, and she said the new classroom helps.
“You actually have elbow room to work on your stuff,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine doing in the old classroom what I do here.”
School board Chair Claudia Limon said she is glad the district built something students and the community could be proud of, not an eyesore sticking out next to the high school’s classic stone architecture.
“It sends a strong message we want to invest in the future,” she said. “It seemed the most sensible thing we could do to make sure our kiddos had what they needed.”
The students seem to be getting that message.
Senior Adamary Hernandez said that creating a space where more art can be created and displayed shows her the district knows it has talented students who deserve to be supported.
ESSER delivered the funds to create the building, but Oregon’s other investments will keep it running. The High School Success Fund and the Student Success Act help pay for the teachers and supplies.
The new building benefits more than the STEAM courses. Moving some of those classes out of the old buildings left more room for other departments. The middle school special education program, for instance, moved out of a merely adequate basement space to a nicer and more roomy area closer to the front office.
“The more spaces you have, the better,” Duff said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
jarnold@osba.org
