Orchard Heghts’ roof actually replaced early

David Dahlke wrote a July 17 letter to the editor (“Somehow the sky never seems to fall”) stating that the South Kitsap School District had put the replacement of the Orchard Heights Elementary School roof “on the back burner.”

The truth is that the opposite happened.

The work was accelerated to be done this summer instead of next summer. Anyone who drives by the school will see that the work is well under way.

It should be completed before the start of school in September.

For student safety reasons, school roofing projects are done in the summer, when possible.

Due to the slowed economy, construction bids are significantly lower than they would have been in a busier economic climate. Thus, the prevailing bid for the Orchard Heights roof was significantly lower than we could have anticipated last fall (when the 2009 levy budget was finalized).

That allowed the district to shift the timeline of the project to right now instead of the summer of 2010.

Accelerating this project did prompt us to shift a few smaller projects from this summer to next summer so that our reserves weren’t compromised.

The savings will also allow us to keep some maintenance projects on schedule that would have been deferred because of our priorities to keep teachers in the classroom despite elimination of all state Initiative 728 class-size reduction funds (which funded 28 teachers in SKSD).

KATHRYN SIMPSON

South Kitsap

School District

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