Dear Assets School Community,

As we begin the exciting construction on our K-8 campus, I wanted to share with you information about the project. My goal is to keep you as updated as possible. I’ve tried to respond to the questions that I anticipate are the most common right now:

 1.  Where will the new Harry and Jeanette Weinberg K-4 Village be located?  In the northwest corner of our campus. That is on our backfield, on the side closest to Nimitz Elementary School.

2.  What will the K-4 Village consist of?  Three separate residential-style buildings with two classrooms and two breakout rooms in each. There will also be office space, outdoor classroom space, a working garden, and a beautiful outdoor play space. These new facilities will give our youngest students space to grow, learn, and develop their strengths in a learning environment designed especially for them.

3.  When will construction begin and end?  We consider the K-4 Village to be Phase 1 of our master plan to rebuild this campus. We believe Phase 1 will start in October and last approximately nine months. We anticipate beginning next school year with the new K-4 Village open and full of joyful students.

4.  I see construction happening now. What’s going on?  I think of the work being done now as Phase 0. In order to access the backfield for Phase 1, we need to build a fire and construction access lane. This lane will be placed on our property. In order to build this lane to regulation, we need to clear the existing space it occupies.

5.  What buildings does the fire and construction access lane affect?  We have to remove the 40s hallway. This is where Mrs. Griffin, Mr. Powell, and Ms. Bekki were located last year. As you have noticed, they all have moved into different classrooms this year. The trailer has been detached and moved onto the backfield for further prep work. We anticipate the trailer being hauled away next week.

We also need to do a partial demolition of our library and computer lab. This worked started this week and should take approximately two weeks.

6.  How are students impacted by the Phase 0 construction?  It hasn’t affected students too much. The backfield is still open in the morning because the construction in that area doesn’t start until 8am. We have closed the backfield for lunch recess though. For lunch recess, we have offered the students several supervised options. There always is an organized sport or game such as soccer, flag football or kickball. For students who choose this option, they walk off campus to neighboring Lynch Field with the recess supervisor(s) leading the activity. The supervisor(s) have walk-talkies, phones and a first aid kit. For students remaining in the Assembly Area, there are blacktop activities and stations such as tag, basketball, hopscotch, tetherball, scooters, hula hoops, chalk play, jump rope, etc… The backfield should reopen for lunch recess once the 40s trailer is removed. It will remain open until Phase 1 construction starts.

We have closed the library and computer lab during its 2-week renovation. To mitigate the reduced space in the computer lab, we have transformed a separate classroom into a design studio. Hopefully you were able to check it out during Open House. The room is equipped with a SmartBoard, laptops, 3D printers and a green screen for movie-making.

The library is largely unaffected because the high school moved their novels and library collections to their campus. This opened up a lot of space. We also created extra storage in a classroom for our faculty professional library. The full K-8 student collection will be displayed and available in the library just as before.

7.  My child keeps telling me that the Structure is going to get torn down. Is that true?  Not this year. Phase 1 does not affect the Structure, except for the removal of the tire swing and swing set on the Nimitz Elementary side. In fact, we are collaborating with the builders to try and figure out a way to safely keep just the Structure open during construction. We are making no guarantees, but we are all trying hard because we know how much students love it. It is true that in the future, the Structure will eventually have to come down. But, when the time comes, there will be plenty of notice and we’ll be sure to build another playspace that students will enjoy.

 8.  Will construction affect drop-off or dismissal?  It has not and we don’t anticipate any disruptions during Phase 0.

I will keep you updated as construction moves forward, especially when we transition to Phase 1 on the backfield. If you have additional questions, please call or email.

With aloha,

Ryan

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About the Author
Ryan Masa is the K-8 Principal at Assets School in Honolulu, Hawaii

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