WHAT ARE THE SPECIFICS ON THE FACILITY PROJECTS?

Other Madison Middle School Improvements (former Mid-High/Sooner High site) (< 5% of bond)

In addition to solving the problems with the softball locker room and lack of sufficient music rooms at Madison, the bond would provide a bus loop, replace the remaining original HVAC systems, and repair the auditorium. Click the images to enlarge them.

• Madison Bus Loop

  • • Currently both buses and personal vehicles mix on the loop drive in front of Madison. This creates congestion before and after school and increases the possibility of collisions between vehicles or with pedestrians.There is already a new commons area on the back (north) side of the building in the former shop rooms. An existing drive runs from the parking lot to that area, but it does not connect back to Baylor Drive, so large buses cannot use it.

    • The 2016 bond would provide an extension of that road east and then south to loop around Madison. Buses would pick up and drop off students on the loop near the commons, freeing up the front circle drive for personal vehicles.

• Madison HVAC

  • • The 2013 bond issue had sufficient capacity to replace the old heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units in the classrooms of the building, which was built in the late 1960s as Sooner High School. However, there was not enough funding to replace the remainder of the original steam heating system that serves other areas of the building.

    • The 2016 bond would allow the remainder of that old and inefficient system to be replaced with a modern system that is more energy efficient and allows on-demand heating and cooling rather than the current manual switchover required with the old steam heating system.

• Madison Auditorium

While the 2013 bond issue will completely renovate the remainder of the campus, there was not sufficient bonding capacity to address its auditorium. Central staff have staged several community runs in recent years to raise money to begin to address its shortcomings.

This beautifully designed space was built in 1926 to seat 1,000 and was only partially renovated over 20 years in a 1993 bond issue. It has a number of issues that need to be addressed:

• The auditorium has plaster rot on its east wall which needs to be repaired. Its seats are old and many are broken.

• The carpet is worn out and has developed dents and ripples.

• The balcony rail is very low; reinforced safety glass panels along the upper edge would make it much safer if someone trips or falls.

• The audiovisual system needs to be updated.

Elementary Schools (< 4% of bond)

A 2007 bond issue renovated the corridors of Ranch Heights, Wayside, and Woodrow Wilson elementary schools with attractive large grade level numbers, improved carpet, walls, and ceilings. A 2012 bond issue did the same for Richard Kane elementary.

But Hoover and Jane Phillips elementary schools have not been similarly updated. The 2016 bond issue would make similar upgrades to both sites, while respecting the different design styles of each building.

The number one facility improvement requested by the elementary schools were safety improvements for the playgrounds. A recent Stanford University study affirmed the educational importance of recess.

While the elementary schools already have nice playground equipment from previous bond issues, they still have old pea gravel in their play areas which the 2016 bond issue would replace with a safer modern material. Rotting railroad ties along the play area borders would also be replaced.