The West Sound Sun, Bremerton, WA
Friday, August 30, 2002
By: Marietta Nelson

SCHOOL ZONE DIRTY WORK

Officials have a plan to get kids in and out of school and keep them out of harm’s way of the work on Albertsons.

Along with the challenges of a new school year starting Thursday, students, parents and staff at Bremerton Junior High School will have to overcome a noisy, dusty and busy next-door neighbor: a new 51,000 square-foot Albertsons supermarket is going up at Sheridan Road and Wheaton Way, just yards from the school’s south side. In addition, school construction crews have dug up a parking lot at the northwest corner of the school on Wheaton Way to enlarge it. Simply getting into and out of the school will be difficult.

”With all this construction, a prison would be easier to escape than this place,” joked Assistant Principal John Welsh.

So when 900 students converge on BJHS next week, school officials have a plan to keep students and drivers safe.

First, access to the school by students who are walking will be very limited, especially from the western side of Wheaton Way. Sidewalks on the east side of Wheaton Way and the north side of Sheridan are gone, or blocked. A large construction fence will prohibit anyone from entering the school on that side.

So, the school district will offer two or three bus stops in the neighborhoods west of Wheaton Way. Students who walk can pick up the bus and be carried past the construction. Times and places for bus stops are still being worked out. Kevin Ferguson, the district’s director of finance and operations, said those issues should be finalized over the next few days.

Students who don’t or can’t ride a bus should cross Wheaton Way at the Sheridan Road crosswalk, though that intersection is dangerously clogged with construction now.

Second, access to BJHS by car will be restricted to Cherry Avenue. Drivers are asked to take Sheridan to Cherry, and just before the dead end, enter at the driveway that leads to the school’s front entrance. Drivers will exit the school on the new Spruce Street, which will be one way only, onto Sheridan. Spruce relocated a bit east of its previous location to make room for Albertsons.

Third, access to the school for buses will be only from northbound Wheaton Way. All buses will drop off and pick up students from the soon-to-be completed, larger parking lot on the Wheaton Way side. The buses will leave BJHS at the back of the property, passing View Ridge Elementary School.

New signs will direct drivers around the construction. Construction fences around the 6.9-acre site will make sure students don’t enter the property. School officials, crossing guards, police and a safety officer from Sierra Construction, the company building Albertsons, will be at BJHS before and after school Thursday and in the days following to make sure students and drivers are safe.

Ferguson said the district, which sold Albertsons the property for the store, is satisfied with the plans.

While we would have liked to have seen them a little further along in construction, we will work with what we have to keep students safe,” he said.

Bob Graff, the construction superintendent on the Albertsons project, said he’s working with his crew to ensure everything goes well until mid-January, when the project is scheduled to finish. Crews worked hard to ensure the new Spruce Street was ready in time for school, he said. Soon, workers will install a walking path along the east side of Spruce, so pedestrians can enter there, too.

Inside the dusty construction office trailer Thursday at the site, Graff, a lean, towering man with a bushy mustache and a deep tan, was struggling with a 1-foot measurement mistake that affected the placement of light posts.

But, come September 5, he’ll be ready for school, too.

“From next Thursday, I live with kids,” he said.