New chapter to begin for a historic site
Long a community hub, school is set for a much-anticipated $6M face-lift
By Patrick Cliff / The Bulletin
Published: November 06. 2009 4:00AM PST
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The current Terrebonne Community School was built in 1952 and has since been added onto several times. Principal Mike McIntosh points out where the original hallway ended. Since 1952, the hallway has been closed in at both ends and three classrooms have been added.
Rob Kerr / The Bulletin
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TERREBONNE — When Ardyce Swift went to grade school in Terrebonne during the 1940s, the student body was so small that everyone could have a role in the annual play. Today, the Terrebonne Community School could put on a play with a cast of more than 400.
Despite the growth, people in and around the school say it serves as more than just a place to hold classes.
In the community of more than 1,500 residents, the school houses a range of events including community meetings and sports.
In Swift's day, many of the students came from farming families who lived and worked around town. More families now commute to work outside Terrebonne. Still, the school building houses adult education classes and a food pantry.
As the Redmond School District prepares to break ground on a $6 million expansion, Swift looks forward to a building she hopes can better serve community needs.
“The community is larger and the parents' occupations are much more diverse, but there's still a real sense that our school is our community,” Swift said.
The expansion will include a new library, 14 new classrooms, office space and a computer lab.
The project will be paid for with the $110 million bond passed by voters in 2008, $10 million of which was reserved for maintenance and expansion projects around the district. The bond will also pay for an $80 million high school, set to open in 2012, and a $20 million elementary school, which will open next school year.
The K-8 school has been on B Avenue just west of U.S. Highway 97 for more than 90 years, and district leaders hope the latest project will end what has largely been a scattershot approach to expanding the school. They also want to keep it a community center, and so designed it to allow residents access to the gym, library and computers after the regular school day.
Part of local history
Built in 1911, the original school was a rustic two-story stone building. That was torn down in 1952 and replaced by what was then a modern one-story school. Since then, expansion has been small: a classroom here, another there, said Principal Mike McIntosh, 46.
Some of those old classrooms will be torn down to make room for the expansion. Room 3, where McIntosh's father taught from 1970 until 1994, is part of the original wing that will become a parking lot.
“It's just progress,” McIntosh said. “I don't know that he would react at all to that. You know what? There's some pretty good memories there, but the progress is good.”
That progress includes tearing down most of the original wing, moving the administration offices into the current cafeteria.
Swift, 74, moved with her family to Terrebonne 70 years ago. Until high school, she went to school at the original Terrebonne school in the late 1940s. Many of the families lived on farms spread out beyond town, she said, so the school was where everyone came together.
Each of the four main classrooms was heated by a wood stove in the corner, and Swift remembers thinking of Redmond schools with envy.
“Schools in Redmond, they had coal-fired furnaces,” Swift remembered with a laugh.
McIntosh attended fifth and sixth grade in Terrebonne during the mid-1970s. The student population was just about a quarter of what it is today. Even then, the school had to make do with what little space was available. McIntosh remembers taking music class in a corner of the gym.
“I think Terrebonne has been pressed for space since the beginning of time,” he said.
Because the building serves as more than just a school, Swift believes remaking it is critical. The school's students, she said, need a bigger space not just for class but for plays and after-school activities.
Those sorts of events are even more important now that the school is larger, Terrebonne resident Marianne McGinty said. As the town has grown to more than 1,500 residents in the last decade, it has become harder to know everyone in town, she said.
And the people who live there are working far away from the community, according to the census. Residents have longer commutes to work — 27 minutes — than people who live in Redmond or Bend. With more people living in town and working far away from it than in the past, McGinty, 52, said it is more difficult than ever to meet people in town. In that way, the school's importance has only grown, she said.
Nearly everyone passes through the school at one point, she said.
“It's a hub where you get to know everybody,” said McGinty, who has sent three children to the school. “That school gives (me) the opportunity to get to know (parents) and hang out with them.”
Due for a face-lift
The current building is showing its age, McIntosh said as he walked through its halls.
Throughout the building, there are clues to past construction projects. The library still shows signs of its previous life. In a corner, now hidden by a book display, is a small window. Now useless, it was once where students dropped off their dirty dishes after lunch.
The longest hallway used to be partially enclosed. Though the walls are painted the same color, the different materials used to build separate sections are still visible. The hall itself was once an open breezeway, and its original roof was just plastered over.
“The roof is still up there. They just built over it,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh said he was eager to have students in an updated building, and signs of change there are already evident. Under the cafeteria's round tables, strips of blue tape mark where new office walls, counters and doors will stand. McIntosh laid out the tape, just to be sure everything would fit in the room.
The district hopes to begin construction, possibly by late January, according to Chief Operations Officer Doug Snyder.
Construction will begin on the new classroom wing first. Once students leave for the summer, crews will begin tearing down the original wing and working on the new parking lot.
Originally, the district considered just fixing the heating and ventilation systems at the school. But that would have cost more than $4 million without addressing any overcrowding issues, Snyder said.
“They were in very poor condition,” Snyder said of the dated heating system.
Though construction should be completed by the start of next school year, Snyder said there is a small chance that some detail work would continue once the year begins.
“Hopefully, we stay on course,” Snyder said. “It's a very tight schedule, and we're working very hard to maintain it.”
Once the work is complete, McIntosh hopes the latest version of Terrebonne's school will fit the community for decades to come. The new building, he said, is a departure from how the school has expanded over the last 50 years.
Classrooms were typically tacked on as the school needed more space, with only a view to immediate needs, McIntosh said.
“Boom, we need two more classrooms. Let's put 'em there. Or a gym. Let's put it there,” McIntosh said. “The current approach is taking all those needs and projecting into the future.”
Patrick Cliff can be reached at 541-633-2161 or at pcliff@bendbulletin.com.
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