Construction schedules at the new high school at the Bold Center are making the grade, with Northern Lights School Division officials contributing to the latest architectural drawings and a new name on the horizon.
For each of the three stages of building, new drawings are brought forward to school officials who go over the architectural logistics of the emerging plans and give their input for the next construction stage, a unique way of building a structure.
The first phase of drawings were called the “30 per cent” drawings; drawings that included all the architectural features of the school—where the front entrance would be located, the number of classrooms, the size of classrooms and the high school layout.
“With a house, you know the complete plan before a shovel hits the ground,” said J. A Williams principal Terry Moghrabi. “This way, we have an opportunity to give our input through each stage of the process.”
The 60 per cent drawings were recently released to school officials, and Moghrabi said he plans to share them with the school community at JAWS’ parent/teacher interviews, in order to give parents a chance to respond.
The 60 per cent drawings deal with internal concerns—mechanical, electrical and plumbing issues are currently being discussed.
“We’re looking at heating, electricity—do we have enough plug-ins, for example,” Moghrabi explained.
Moghrabi says that school and planning officials meet regularly to discussion construction-related matters.
“By January, we will have responded to the 60 per cent drawings. The next set will by the 90 per cent drawings. This will have very slight modifications—did we like this lock, did we like this window mechanism—these kind of adjustments before the final stages,” he said.
“The way the new school is being built is new for the division,” said NLSD superintendent Roger Nippard. “In the past, every other school we’ve built, we built ourselves. In this case, it is the government through Alberta Infrastructure who is designing and building the school. In fact, in order for us to go out and visit the site, we need permission.”
So while NLSD officials are sitting this one out when it comes to construction, their input is being taken into consideration during the 30, 60, and 90 per cent architectural drawing stages, and finally, according to Nippard, it is time to get together as a community and figure out what to name Lac La Biche’s new institute of learning.
“They [Alberta Infrastructure and Clark Builders] want a decision from us on the name of the school so they can put together final drawings and design the logo for the gym floor,” Nippard said.
At last Wednesday’s board meeting, NLSD officials made the decision to go ahead with administrative policy 546—a policy that sets out the guidelines for naming new school division facilities.
“There is a process in place for naming new facilities,” Nippard explained. “We’re going to go out and advertise and the community will get the opportunity to propose names.”
The community will not only get the opportunity to come up with a name for the new high school, but, according to Nippard, a new name for J. A Williams High School when it becomes the new-to-you middle school.
“We’ll have discussions within the community about whether Dr. Swift should have a name change as well,” he said.
Construction Update
As for getting down to the nitty-gritty on the high school construction, the brass tacks if you will, Tracy Larson, a spokeswoman for Alberta Infrastructure, said the project is moving along rapidly, and everything is on schedule despite the cold and snow.
“We’ve already completed site levelling and putting in the pilings,” Larson said. “Now underway is grade beam work and renovations to the Bold Centre.”
Grade beam work is the concrete structure, built at grade, or soil, level, in which the entire building will be built.
“Once the grade beam work is done, you’ll start to see the inside shell come together—you’ll see the steel start to rise up,” she said.
