With a shiny new namesake opened around the corner, the old Panther lake Elementary School on 108th Avenue Southeast sits empty these days. But if floodwaters rise this winter, the old school will be pressed back into service to house students from schools in the flood zone.
Panther Lake Elementary has been identified in the district’s continuation of instruction plans to host students from Kent Elementary and Neely-O’Brien Elementary in the case that those school have to be closed due to flooding.
“We feel we can move both the elementaries to that school and maintain as normal and instructional process as possible,” said Fred High, assistant superintendent of Business Services for the Kent School District.
In addition, students at Mill Creek Middle School will be sent to the Kent Phoenix Academy if there is flooding at their building.
High said the plan to maintain the school life of the students who live in the valley is important because it would provide consistency in an otherwise hectic time.
“Education should be something that’s fairly constant for them,” he said.
High said the old Panther Lake building was selected because it is a “fully functional, safe facility” that should be able to house the populations of both Kent Elementary and Neely-O’Brien.
The old Panther Lake Elementary was closed in June as students and staff were moved to a brand-new building on Southeast 216th Street, but High said the district never mothballed the building because of the possibility of flooding.
“The school has never been completely shut off,” he said.
In addition, High said the building’s boiler also was inspected and a full cleaning was performed on the building, including carpets, just in case it would be needed.
High said the district also is working on a transportation plan to get students to the school.
Though improvements to the Howard Hanson Dam and local levees on the Green River have somewhat reduced the chances of a flood, High said the lessened probability doesn’t alleviate the district’s need to plan for flooding.
Because of that, teachers and administrators in the valley schools also have been provided with plastic containers to store records and instructional material for easy transportation out of the valley.
The district also has sent letters to parents in the valley to determine if families have made plans for the possibility of a flood and what they will be doing should it occur. The letters also ask for contact information.
“If we have some contact numbers … we’ll be calling people,” Neely-O’Brien Principal Jody Metzger said this week. “We’ll know where our kids are.”
A priority list for items in the building also has been established, because flood warnings could be anywhere from several to 72 hours, which would give the district more time to get items out of the schools.
Metzger said teachers also have been told to take home personal items, such as books and stuffed animals, in order to protect them from rising waters.
“A lot of things have gone home,” she said.
In addition, Kent Valley schools have all been ringed with sandbag barriers, to protect the facilities as best as possible. High aid the district is also working with the city of Kent to make the sandbag walls a permanent feature until the flood threat subsides, generally considered to be three to five years. That’s the estimated time it will take the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop a permanent fix to continuing leakage at the Howard Hanson Dam.
Because of being located on slightly lower ground, both Mill Creek and Neely-O’Brien have received a double-stack of sandbags, creating a rather high wall around the entire building.
“It’s not the most beautiful thing in the world,” Metzger said with a laugh, but he added the walls help to reinforce a sense of stability for the kids.
High said the cost of keeping the old Panther Lake school at the ready is mostly in manpower to the district, but said keeping there will be additional costs if the building’s utilities would have to be used, partially because the decades-old building had one of the highest costs per square foot in the district.
The district also has purchased additional flood insurance for all three schools in the valley.
“We’re as far insured as we can be at this point,” High said.
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