Some Finishing Touches.

As you know we are almost finished all the final bits and pieces of the renovation here at Parkview. The school is really starting to look great. 
The one unfinished part is the Kindergarten play area. Today we were given the timelines for the repair and regeneration of this play area.
Starting this Thursday the west side of the school will be closed for foot traffic for about a week. This is due to the fact that there will be machinery and screening stored in that area so that we do not have to take up any more of the school wide play area than is necessary.
Nobody will be able to walk through this area for about a week. 

This will allow the company to put in drainage that will run from the middle of the primary/Junior playground (at the north end of the new building extension) to the Kindergarten area and back.

This process will begin with a 20 foot wide fenced area being constructed at the north end of the building on this Thursday and Friday where they will dig a trench and add drainage pipes to connect with a sewer. Men and machines will work in this area for those two days.  

 Then the fenced area will move between the play area and the K area diagonally across the hard top.

To the gate at the K area. This will go on for Monday and Tuesday next week.

Finally they will connect it all up in the Kindergarten area. The new hardtop surfacing will be replaced and it the weather holds, we could have sod down.

The west side of the school will be closed from this Thursday until further notice. We are hoping to have our Kindergarten students back in their enclosure soon. 

The baseball diamond on the north east side of the school will also be remediated during this process. 

Thank you for your patience during this final push to completion.

We are in our classes and excited to welcome our students tomorrow!

It was a busy Labour Day Monday at Parkview!
We have been working hard to get our gym, classrooms and hallways ready for our students!

Here are what some of our new classrooms look like:

Our hallways are clean and clear...thanks to our wonderful caretakers!

This is our new doorway...see the caution tape? That is to remind us that we have a new partition in the middle of the hallway.

Tomorrow you will be going to the following locations to line up and find out what class you are in:

Kindergarten students will go to the new Kindergarten classes along the west side of the building to our usual play area.

Our grade one and two students will go to the end of the primary wing at the north end of our building by the playground:

The grade 3, 4 and 5s will line up in the Junior area to find out what class they are in:

Grade 6 students will meet by their portables:

Grade 7 and 8 students will line up at the doors by the parking lot on the east side of the building:

If there is HEAVY rain we will be learning who our teachers are inside:
Kindergartens: Front hall
Grades 1 to 3 in the Gym
Grades 4 to 8 in the library

Thank you so much to our fantastic caretaking team...they have worked tirelessly to clean and reclean our school to get it ready for our students. Thanks also to our teachers and our support staff for giving of their personal time this weekend to get our classrooms ready for our students.

SEE YOU TOMORROW at 8:15!

Let the Upacking Begin!

Well today, all of our teachers had access to their new classrooms.

 This includes our teachers in the two new classrooms, Ms. Mohan our grade 2/3 teacher and Ms. Aggarwal our grade 4 teacher.

All three of our kindergarten teachers got into their classrooms for the first time today.

Here are the kindergarten classroom washrooms between Ms. O'Yazdi and Ms. Shim's classes (Ms. Nakada's class has their own "in class" bathroom).

Here is the kindergarten play area...we will come and go from school from here but until the sod is down and the grass is growing we will  not be playing here.  Notice our nice meandering trail and new trees. The grass is coming soon!

Here is where our kindergarten students will be playing for the first 4 to 6 weeks while the grass grows...a play area at the front of the school. Our teachers will bring out bins of toys for the students to play with during recess and lunch.

The area where we park our bikes is now restored back to how it was before:

And our bus loop has a hard surface on it again.

Here is the new area where we will put our garbage and recycling to keep it neat and clean:

What our field looks like from the end of our newly extended primary hall. The best part is that it even sounds like a park now...it is quiet and all you hear is the chirping of birds and the laughter of children.

Tomorrow I will update our blog with some of the final pictures of the classrooms, hallways as well as pictures of the entry areas for students on Tuesday.

We are almost there...our teachers and caretakers will be in for one last day of preparation before you come...we are very excited to be seeing all of you on Tuesday at 8:15AM!

Progress Update

As the summer draws to an end, the school start up is beginning to happen. 

Starting Monday August 25, the office will be open from 8am to 4pm. Most of our teachers have had access  to their classrooms since Wed August 20th with the exception of the teachers in the primary wing and our librarian. The primary areas of the school are not going to be acessible until the end of the week. As these teachers will have limited time in their classes to get ready, we ask that families stay clear of that part of the school until Tuesday September 2, 2014. To assist these teachers in getting ready, the school will be open for staff on Saturday August 30. 

I am sure that you have noticed the work that has been going on at the front of the school. The digging has been going on so that the waterline from the street can be run to our new sprinkler room.

As you can see, our bus loop and parking lot are now begining to be put back together.

Our back field is slowly being restored from the truck access road back to a playground.

And as you can see, the exterior of the addition is complete. 

Mr. Daponte's classroom has been restored to it's oringinal size and the tempoary hall and door have been removed.

All of this work on the exterior and the interior has been happening 12 hours a day on weekdays and weekends throughout the summer. I have been told that we are on schedule however, we all need to respect the space requirements of the workers as they finish up. At this point only construction workers have been allowed in the new interior spaces of the school. Once the spaces have been released back to the school board, I will take pictures and publish them in my blog.

Any questions that you might have can be addressed to me in person in the office or via my email at Lisa.Dilworth@yrdsb.ca 

Of course I can't conclude this entry without commending our amazing caretakers who have been working under very challenging circumstances all summer long. The classrooms that are currently ready are sparkling clean and teacher belongings have been delivered to their correct locations form all the various spring locations throughout the school. 

Our caretakers have been working a great deal of overtime to get the building ready for us.

 Thanks Guys!

I will be blogging more frequently now that the pace is picking up and I will be sending you information regarding our entry routines etc. prior to the start of school at 8:30 on September 2. We are all excited about the upcoming school year, working with our amazing students and families as well as the stability that being in our new and improved space will bring!

Summer is Here!

We hope that everyone is enjoying the hot summer weather. We know that the students and staff are grateful that the weather was as moderate as it had been up until the end of school.
On Friday, we took a few pictures to update you on the build as we left. As of Monday, the whole school building became a construction site and as such everyone (including administrators) are not allowed back into the building until we get the school back prior to school starting. As we want this job to be completed on time, we are staying out of the way until we are allowed back at the end of the summer.

When we left on Friday we saw...

An enlarged foyer for Ms. Nakada's kindergarten room:

The new exterior walls of the FDK and the common entrance between the other two Kindergarten rooms are in place:

You can see windows in the new building on all sides:

The exterior bricks have arrived and will cover the cinder block exterior soon:

In an effort to speed up the building process, the builders are taking advantage of the fact that school is no longer in session and will be keeping the gates open to the truck traffic from 7AM to 4:30PM for ongoing deliveries from Monday to Friday. This will make access to the playgrounds much more challenging. We would suggest that you not encourage your children to play at our school playgrounds over the summer. Your children are better off playing at the playground at Roycroft and Sciberras.

We will publish ongoing updates on the progress of the build from the outside over the upcoming weeks so stay tuned!!!

Have a safe and happy summer!!!

Final Stretch!

We have just 14 school days left, and as we race towards the end of the year, the construction has also continued to move forward quickly.
Today they have placed the concrete slabs on the north classrooms. These will be forming the roofs of the end classrooms.

 The existing roof on the west side over the new Full Day Kindergarten rooms has been cut away and a new structure will be built complete with metal roof this week. The exterior walls of these classrooms are also taking shape.

However, as the pace of the construction increases we have been finding it increasingly difficult to shield our kindergarten classes (Ms. O'Yazdi's classes) from the disruptions associated with the work being done. So in order to minimize disruption and ensure safety of staff and students we took advantage of the PA day on Friday and we have moved Ms. O'Yazdi's kindergarten class to the staff room.

We chose the staff room due to the fact that there are washrooms located within the room and it is a nice open space in which to set up centres. As you can see, Ms. O'Yazdi and Ms. Nakada did an awesome job setting up the class for Monday morning. Please note that all kindergarten students will still be entering the building via the west doors that they were using last week.

Moving our Kindergartens into the staff room, displaced our wonderful grade 8 class. Mr. Suleiman generously agreed to move his class to our gymnasium. He also worked hard to set up his class on Friday.

Moving Mr. Suleiman's class into the gym means that our gym classes will be held outside for the final three weeks of the year.

I can't say enough how wonderful our staff (teachers, caretakers and support staff) have been. Thanks also to the caretaking staff at Markville SS who came over Friday morning and helped us out with the "heavy lifting".

Sometimes it takes a village to grow a school!!