The sun shines through trees over Toledo High School as construction continues.
Construction on Toledo High School continues, seen on Sunday.
Construction of the Toledo High School continues as crew members work under new social distancing guidelines.
Toledo School District’s high school building construction remains on schedule with an estimated completion date of August of 2021. The district hopes to have students learning in the newly-constructed classrooms by mid-January.
In November of 2018, Toledo voters approved a $7 million bond which was matched with $18 million in state funding, allowing the school district to construct a new $25 million high school building.
A 20,000-square-foot addition will be constructed for new classrooms connected to the existing high school building and the old high school will be remodeled and refurbished. The completed building will be about 70,000 square feet. A portion of the old high school building is being demolished.
The school district held the ground-breaking ceremony on Jan. 31, 2020, which featured a performance from Cowlitz Tribal drummers and speeches made by community members, students and faculty — past and present.
Some of the new features that will be in the new high school include an outdoor classroom, new equipment in the woodshop, full landscaping, new bleachers in the gym mezzanines and a complete refinish of the gym floor.
The contractor working on the Toledo High School is Jones & Roberts Co. Toledo School District Superintendent Chris Rust said that almost all of the wall framing is in place and they are starting to install drywall and beginning to paint.
“The contractors are also starting to weatherize the roof,” said Rust.
The plan before the COVID-19 pandemic caused schools to switch to distance learning was to have students in the building while construction went on around them. Rust said that although COVID-19 has caused some supply chain delays, contractors are having a much easier time getting work done because students are not on campus.
Denny Clark, who was principal of Toledo High School in 1974, spent his first year as principal helping with the construction of the current high school building.
Rust said that Clark has been a great resource of institutional knowledge and he is always available to answer questions that may arise during the construction process.
“There’s an incredible amount of detail that goes into this project — down to which light switch covers would look the best and be the most cost-efficient,” said Rust. “It’s a great project that I’m glad could be a part of my career.”
Rust said that there is a high school construction committee that meets weekly and discusses all of the decisions that need to be made in order to keep the process moving along.
Rust runs a blog where he posts updates of the construction progress — chris-rust.blogspot.com/. There is also a live webcam stream on YouTube that shows the construction process called “THS Construction Cam” — www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRDEwrgBqN0&feature=youtu.be.
