David Rodriguez was sitting in his car again Thursday afternoon waiting to pick up his second-grade twins and sixth-grader at Mount Erie Elementary School.

His wife drops the kids off in the morning and he picks them up every day. For Rodriguez, it’s a safety issue.

“I’m the overprotective dad,” he said. “We only live two minutes down the road But a lot can happen in that time.”

Picking them up also makes it easier to shuttle the kids to different activities. Thursday it was ballet and other days it’s basketball and Girl Scouts.

He said the school’s current traffic setup is pretty good, But it gets tight in the pickup and dropoff loop in front of the school and hard to get back out on 41st Street. By 3:20 p.m., when school lets out, the line is more than a dozen cars long and extends well back into the traffic lane on 41st Street.

“I make it a point to be here early and read a book or the newspaper,” he said.

A few cars ahead, Marie Estes waits to pick up her first-grader and fourth-grader.

She tries to get to the school early to avoid the congestion that comes with picking up her kids.

“Traffic gets so jammed up. I’d rather get here early and wait,” she said. “The pickup is a nightmare. Something needs to be done.”

Traffic safety issues will be addressed at the school if voters pass a 17.5-year $59.8 million bond in April. If the bond passes, about $7 million will be spent to reconfigure the parking lot, bus lane and student dropoff and pickup area as well as build the school a new 13,500-square-foot community gymnasium.

Plans include a bus lane off 41st Street along the east side of the building. The parking lot in front of the school would be expanded to include a larger area for parents to drop off and pick up their students.

As the School Board looked at setting the bond amount earlier this year, the initial $76 million total included a $12.4 million renovation at Mount Erie. But the project was scaled back. The School Board opted to postpone renovating portions of the school and scaled back the planned gym addition.

The physical education wing will now include a new gym, office, storage and rest rooms. The computer lab will move to a larger space and the nurse’s room and staff preparation area will be modernized.

Mount Erie was built in 1961 and was last renovated in the early 1990s.

It was a light renovation, said Principal Bob Knorr. After a failed bond, the Mount Erie portion was scaled back to include renovation of the classrooms but not other support areas.

“We’ve always been a step behind in the equity of space,” he said.

Knorr said there is a feeling of tightness in the school. Though the classrooms are the same size as the other elementary schools, the total space per student is significantly less.

During the 2006-2007 school year, Island View had 133 square feet per student, Fidalgo had 128 and Mount Erie had 104.
Based on the planned enrollment for next year, that number will go down at Mount Erie to 99 square feet per student. Island View will have 137 and Fidalgo 120. The difference between Island View and Mount Erie is the equivalent of 19 portable units.

“The tightness feeling we have is not unbearable But it certainly limits what we can do with kids,” Knorr said.

Renovations at Mount Erie will allow the school to support high-needs students with a roomier nurses room, get more storage space so electrical rooms won’t have to be used for the kiln and art supply storage and upgrade the computer space.

“We’re going to be a good school whether we get it or not,” Knorr said. “(But) we could do so much more with more space.”

Waiting just outside the school’s parking lot on 41st Street, parent Colleen McClure comes every day to pick up her second-grader. She said it can be a scary area with people trying to pass going both ways, oftentimes putting three cars next to each other across the lane.

“I’m sure the neighbors on the street hate it,” she said. “The problem is the parking lot area isn’t big enough.”

When the school’s parking area was originally designed, the turnaround in front of the school was for buses, Knorr said.

About nine years ago, the traffic patterns changed significantly. More parents were picking up their kids.

“If you were a visitor at the school at 3 you couldn’t get through the humanity (to the front door),” he said.

The school’s traffic system was changed about eight years ago. A bus route was added to the staff and visitor parking area and what was formerly the bus loop became an area for parents to drop off and pick up their students.

“It was a piecemeal attempt to make bad design better,” Knorr said.

Four years ago the school received a $160,000 grant for sidewalks on 41st Street. The school has safety patrol students who help the younger students cross the street safely.

“We work really hard on teaching them the safety aspects,” Knorr said.

But the needs for the school now are different than they were 18 years ago.

At 3:15 p.m., Knorr said it isn’t uncommon to have parents waiting 20 cars deep to get their kids.

“More and more parents are bringing their kids to school and picking them up,” he said. “Lives have gotten so much more hectic.”

After lunch, physical education teacher Val Holtgeerts helps put away tables and sweep the floor to make sure the school’s multipurpose room is ready to go for her afternoon gym classes.

“I’m lucky to be ready to go at 12:45 when my kids come in,” she said.

Students are studying volleyball, so every morning Holtgeerts sets up nets in the room, takes them down before lunch, sets them up again after lunch and often takes them down again at the end of the day so another group can use the space.

“We have to shut down our instructional use for one and a half hours,” Knorr said.

The multipurpose room is the school’s only common space besides the library — and it’s well-used.

Besides lunch and gym, the room is used for all-school assemblies and presentations.

The room is open before school for intramural sports and basketball practice and after school for arts classes, basketball or volleyball, Parks and Recreation Department activities, special Olympics, fiddlers, Cub Scouts and church on Sundays.
“It’s a room that gets used a lot,” Knorr said.

But, the room’s flexibility can be a hindrance.

“None of the uses can be maximized,” he said. “It has so many uses it’s almost useless.”

With health and fitness getting more emphasis in schools, more space for physical activity is more important than ever.

Knorr said the state requires students get an average of 100 minutes of physical activity a week. Students at Mount Erie get 45 minutes per week in gym class, which leaves teachers responsible for 55 minutes. Their options include walking around the field or jump roping outside.

“A dedicated physical education building will give us more opportunity to let teachers use it,” he said.

Holtgeerts would like to be able to offer lunchtime activities, like a double Dutch team or a unicycle performance squad.
“The more supervised activities that go on the better it is for kids,” she said.

Students already flock to the open gym before school when they can try new things in the area they are learning about in gym. Holtgeerts has offered a badminton tournament and a basketball free throw competition in the morning.

There isn’t much opportunity to use the stage in the room, so it used mostly for storage, Knorr said.

Holtgeerts’ office is stacked to the ceiling with physical education equipment. Soccer balls are stuffed in the back for use during the spring, basketballs are barely accessible behind other equipment and a garbage bin with hockey sticks sits on top of a closet. 

“Everything’s pretty packed in here,” she said.

Holtgeerts is already thinking about what she could do with a new gym.

“I look forward to seeing the different ways the gym will be used,” she said. “The potential is huge.”

Other Anacortes school bond articles:
Anacortes school bond would fund $23.9 million career and technology wing at high school
School bond would fund classrooms, stadium, and renovate high school library, Brodniak Hall
Synthetic turf would allow more field use at same cost, school leaders say
School bond would replace ‘woefully inadequate’ maintenance building
District asking voters to ‘protect our investment’
Q & A: School bond costs, benefits examined
Inside the Anacortes school bond
Largest bond request in county history
School survey shows respondents favor same proposal
Anacortes School District’s $62.9 million bond goes to voters