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!!

Ch Ch Ch Changes!

With only five weeks of school left, we are starting to see real changes on the exterior of our school.
The kindergarten area is really starting to take shape. This weekend concrete was cut and the wall was partially removed and the new kindergarten space is starting to emerge.

On the North side of the building, two new classrooms are beginning to emerge:

And finally our Jr. track and field try outs were today...the usual Parkview ingenuity prevailed as we found a long lost sand pit in which to have our long jump trials.

Stay tuned for more updates!

And the beat goes on.....

 As we are moving closer to our music night on May 29th, the music of workers busily building around the Parkview site continues.

As you see we now have two foundations outlined with concrete forms and the sand and gravel has been compacted so that they will be ready to pour the concrete pads upon which they will be building.

Along the west side of the building, we also now have concrete forms poured and the compacting is happening there. Due to the compacting noise, Ms. O'Yadi's Kindergareten class will be operating from the temporary library at the end of the hallway for the next couple of days. We have been told that this level of noise should subside after this week.

Once that is done, there will be some masonry work started, the concrete will be poured to form the floor and the exterior wall of the old classrooms will be removed. We will start to see more evident change at that time.

Over the next six weeks we will be working together with our construction crews to ensure that our school year concludes in an exciting and positive manner. We will also be making sure that our students are also able to observe and learn from the exciting work that is going on outside of our classrooms.

Some Temporary Movement...

Hi,
Today was a busy day at Parkview.
As the construction progresses, the workers are starting to prepare the old part of the school to become a part of the new Kindergaraten rooms, there  has been some noisy jackhammering going on. To ensure the continuity of programing for Ms. O'Yazdi's class and to minimize disruptions we have temporarliy moved them to our temporary library in room 14. The class today and the class tomorrow will be in that room. They will be back in their regular room on Friday as the work will be completed at that time. Parents will still be dropping off and picking up at the same doors as before.

 The big crane!

This location where the jack hammering is occurring is outside of the classroom and is partitioned however the noise will prevent students from being able to learn comfortably in their current room. Thus, the library is a good temporary option.
Thanks to Ms. O'Yazdi and her students for their flexibility!

Footings Are Afoot

And so it begins....


I was past on the weekend to see what had transpired during the week and it appears as if we have footings for our two new classrooms at the north end of the primary wing:

And...the ground has been leveled to begin the work on the extension from our existing classrooms which will become our full day kindergarten rooms next year...

Our hopes are that as the ground dries we will be able to reclaim some of the feild for recesses. However, we will be contining to have staggered reacesses until the end of the year.

Also the gates are open on the weekend. Please let your non Parkview neighbours know that they can access the playground and hardtop during non school hours.