What to do with students at Weston School as reconstruction takes place next year?

Superintendent Bill Draa revealed part of a proposed solution at Monday’s Ripon Unified School Board meeting.

The deployment plan, for starters, would call for transitional kindergarteners to go to Ripona and Ripon Elementary for the 2014-15 school year.

Incoming kindergarten and first-grade students would attend Park View School while second- and third- grade students would be ticketed for Ripona.

Fourth- through- sixth- grade- students would spend upcoming year at Colony Oak while seventh and eighth graders could go to Ripon Elementary.

“That would make sense for the junior high based on the proximity (of Ripon Elementary) to Weston,” said Draa, who noted that space at the respective elementary campuses also factored into the move.

He indicated that some of the moves were predicated on the K-8 sites that currently have empty classrooms.

Plans also call for the some of the existing portables to be moved to some of the sites.

Park View, for example, would get four portable classroom units while Ripon Elementary likely would add one more, according to Draa.

He indicated that arrangement of moving portables must be planned way ahead of time.

As for reconstruction at Weston, the designs were recently submitted to the Division of the State Architect.

Design plans are also in the works for Colony Oak, which is also scheduled for reconstruction under the voter-approved bond measure.

Khushroo Gheyara, Chief Executive Officer of Program Management Integration, is working with the district on the Weston and Colony Oak reconstruction plans.

Work on Weston, pending DSA approval on the plans – included is a new gymnasium coupled with new classroom wings for K-6 and 7-8 students, and utilizing the existing multi-purpose room for additional support facilities – is scheduled to begin in the summer.

According to Gheyara’s time tables, the Weston project is expected to go out to bid in May. C.T. Brayton and Sons are the contractors under this lease / lease back.

“They can guarantee the maximum price (of the project) not to exceed a specific dollar amount,” he said.

From there, construction could take 12 to 13 months, Gheyara added.

Base on that, Weston would reopen in July 2015.