Wasilla High will start as usual

WASILLA -- Despite some wishful thinking among Wasilla High students, they won't be getting an extension on their summer break.

This week Wasilla High School officials are registering students in tents set up outside the building, and once school starts some classes will be in portable buildings. But even as the $10 million renovation project at the high school continues, so will the regular class schedule.

"There is a rumor going around," principal Dwight Probasco said. Some parents have called the Mat-Su Borough School District and the high school asking if school was starting on time because their teen-agers had insisted the first day had been delayed because of construction.

"Wouldn't that be nice?

But no, we're opening. We'll be there on the first day," Probasco said.

Starting classes on Sept. 3 is requiring some creativity and hard work from the high school staff, however. In the second of three phases, the renovation project has included a new roof, carpeting, boiler, heating and ventilation system, disability-access upgrades, a renovated cafeteria and a redesigned front office area, among other improvements.

"It's a lot of good stuff," Probasco said. "It isn't just cosmetic work."

While they are generally excited about the final result, the teachers and staff at the school are having to work around the construction.

"But we have a very good staff here. They knew this was coming. They're rolling with it," Probasco said.

The efforts began earlier this month when the school mailed registration packets to parents to make this week easier. Now they are completing registration and assisting students and parents on the school grounds while construction crews prepare to open a portion of the building in time for classes.

"We've got Visqueen up and tents and people in raincoats," Probasco said earlier this week. "It looks a bit like the state fair."

It won't be getting much easier once students return to school.

The school's 1,100 students and 100 staff members will have to shuffle from one room to another to portables during the next few months as the project enters its third phase. The school year will start in the downstairs west wing with just 13 classrooms in addition to portable buildings. Later this winter, construction will move downstairs and classes will move upstairs.

But when students and staff return from Christmas break this winter, the project should be wrapped up and they will have a new and improved Wasilla High.

"It's been a long time coming," Probasco said.

Built in 1975, Wasilla High became the subject of a grassroots effort several years ago when parents became frustrated about the school's condition.

"We have a building here in the wintertime where on one side it will be 40 degrees and on the other 90 degrees," Probasco said.

Working with the borough, district and state, the parents were able to get the $10 million renovation project onto a bond that voters eventually approved. Construction began last summer.

Probasco has been principal at the school for a decade and first began working at the school nine years before that.

"I remember when I started here as a science teacher I was in the west wing, two years after it had been added," Probasco said. "Everything still seemed so new."

Over the years, the school's roof sprung leaks, the carpet became worn and other problems developed. But all along, the principal said, it has been a good building.

"It's like that old Rod Stewart song -- 'She wears it well,'" Probasco said.

The Mat-Su Borough School District has a number of construction projects continuing this school year. The new Houston High School, originally slated to open this fall, is expected to be completed in mid-November and will open for fall 2003.

The replacement Sherrod Elementary in Palmer is on schedule and about 10 percent complete, with foundation, walls and slabs in place. That school is also expected to open next fall.