KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – How many of us have heard our parents tell stories of their youth? You know, the ones where they had to walk to school uphill in the snow – barefoot.

Well, here’s mine: “When I went to Kelseyville High School, you had to play sports in the gym with NO air conditioning. It was sweltering. It’s amazing we didn’t all die of heat stroke.” (A little drama makes the story sound better, don’t you think?)

In all seriousness, that gym was HOT and now it’s not, thanks to one of the many bond measure projects we’ve completed so far.

In 2016, local voters approved a $24 million bond measure and I’m here to tell you it’s making a really great difference for students and community members throughout our district.

Master plan

The school board started with a master plan, reviewing all the projects we would do if we had money to burn.

Next, those school board members did the hard work of prioritizing the projects, so we could address the most pressing problems and spend our limited funds in a way that would help the most people.

Kelseyville High School

At Kelseyville High School, we installed air conditioning in the gym, replaced portable classrooms that were anywhere from 20 to 30 years old with nice, new modular buildings.

In January, we’ll finish a brand-new shop building where students will be able to gain practical skills in woodworking, ag, metals, and mechanics.

Before we’re through, we also plan to update our track and field facility – sprucing up the football field, adding new sports fields, installing an all-weather track, improving seating and providing better accessibility for the community.

Because we want everyone’s hard-earned tax dollars to go as far as possible, we’ve applied for a Career Technical Education grant that would pay for the shop building. If that happens, the money we spent on the building will go back into the bond reserve and we’ll be able to go back to our master plan and figure out what’s next on the list.

Mountain Vista Middle School

At Mountain Vista Middle School, we added new shade structures over ADA-compliant walkways to keep kids cool in the summer and protect them from rain in the winter. Now, we’re moving on to bathroom renovations and replacing the gym floor.

Once that’s done, we’ll pour concrete foundations and relocate some of our modular classrooms to create a more open and attractive campus layout.

Once the modulars are out of the middle of the campus, we’ll landscape the area, adding a lawn where kids can play under the shade of the mature trees we are so lucky to have.

Kelseyville Elementary School

At Kelseyville Elementary School, we’re building a multi-use room, or MUR, a building that will serve as both a cafeteria and a gymnasium where elementary school students will be able to eat indoors when it rains.

The MUR will include a basketball court with an LED scoreboard, shot clock, bleacher seating and a concession stand. We’ll have water stations and drinking fountains, a nice foyer and access to the building from Oak Hill.

Because the basketball court meets high school standards, Mountain Vista Middle School and Kelseyville High School will also be able to use the gym for practices and games. We could even host tournaments there.

While we’re waiting for the MUR to be built, the students can enjoy the new asphalt in the playground and the renovated bathrooms.

Riviera Elementary School

At Riviera Elementary School, our newest school, we’ve redone our parking lot to improve safety and enhance the flow of traffic. We’ve separated bus traffic from parent drop-off/pick-up, replaced gravel with asphalt, and ensured ADA compliance.

We’re also working on putting in a new septic system – one of those projects you really want to take care of before there’s a problem, like we are.

Big thanks

All these projects have been done on time, and many of them under budget. We’ve spent almost $17 million of the original $24 million, and we continue to watch every penny.

We’re hoping to fund additional projects with Proposition 51 money, but we don’t know when that money will arrive from the state. When it does, we’ll review our master plan and keep going down the list.

To all of you who voted in favor of this bond measure, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Kelseyville is an awesome community where we come together to help each other.

I also want to thank our maintenance staff, the contractors, the architects and our project manager.

It’s kind of amazing we were able to finish the projects we started this summer, given the interruption of the fires. Everyone worked really hard to make it happen.

Another big thanks to our students and staff who have been wonderfully patient while all this construction was under way.

I feel lucky to live and work in such a great community.

Dave McQueen is superintendent of Kelseyville Unified School District.