PHILLIPS – Additions to the Phillips Elementary School are essentially completed, although last-minute touches and a pile of unpacking were still taking place Friday morning.
The addition and renovations to the school have provided the following enhancements to the building:
• A very large storage room next to the superintendent’s office – storage space at most schools is at a premium. This room will allow teachers to stow files and materials they will not need on a daily basis, providing more space for daily learning materials.
• A new softball field in front of the school.
• An upgrade of the building’s computer systems funded by a technical grant of $75,000.
• Two new and larger kindergarten rooms with attached bathrooms.
• A custodian’s closet that is at least four times larger than the former one.
• A new art room with attached storage rooms large enough to house a utility sink and kiln.
• A new library with views of Mount Blue and surrounding mountains.
Though the construction will be completed in time for the first day of school, it was not without its tribulations. Jimmy Snell, who had worked on the project with R & R Construction of Lewiston and who is now a Phillips school custodian and bus driver, he said their greatest challenge was the winter weather.
Only the framing and wooden roof structure of the addition had been completed in October of last year when 2 feet of snow fell. Snell said crews spent an entire day just digging out. A second storm dumped 3 feet on the area in December.
Quenten Clark, SAD 58 superintendent, stood among piles of boxes and unassembled office furniture in his new offices Friday.
He said that the renovations cost $800,000, but half of that was funded through a grant. The remainder came from a state-funded interest-free loan.
The hardest part of this process for him was keeping the teachers out of the school until it was ready. He jokingly spoke of the teachers “pressing their little noses to the windows,” waiting to get in.
And though he was kidding, on the first day teachers were permitted into the building, kindergarten teacher Margaret Huff arrived at 5:30 Saturday morning, husband in tow, to arrange her new room for her 22 incoming students, he said.
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