Construction continues at Quaker Valley Middle School as students prepare for classes Tuesday

Children entering sixth grade at Quaker Valley Middle School will usher in a new school year Tuesday in temporary digs at Osborne Elementary School.

That's because a $26.5 million construction project continues at the Sewickley campus, which holds sixth- through eighth-grade students at Quaker Valley.

The project began in the summer of 2011 and is expected to be completed by Nov. 30, Superintendent Joseph Clapper said Monday during a walk-through of the Graham Street building in Sewickley. Students will begin classes there Jan. 7, he said.

“If everything goes according to plan, we'll bring the kids in here (to tour the building),” Clapper said. “They're supposed to walk in here Jan. 7, but we're not waiting until the seventh. That's a rough adjustment.

“Both the sixth- and seventh-graders have not been in school here. They don't know this building, anyway. And the eighth-graders are a year-and-a-half removed from it. So when they walk in, they're going to have to get acclimated to it.”

Until then, seventh- and eighth-grade students will remain at Anthony Wayne Elementary School in the Ambridge Area School District, where classes were held throughout all of last school year.

Among the many details children, staff and community members will find when the Sewickley middle school is completed include a more than 500-seat auditorium — large enough to fit the student body, Director of Administrative Services Joseph Marrone said — and sits near new space for choral, orchestra and band classes.

An integrated arts wing was constructed in the former administration parking area. The space includes 2-D and 3-D classrooms and a computer-aided drawing classroom, among other features.

On Monday, boxes of exercise machines filled space that will become a wellness center, Clapper said. The $60,000 worth of equipment was donated to the district, he said.

Work on the building project is about 80 percent completed, Marrone said.

Middle school Principal Sean Aiken said he and other staff members have been talking with families about the temporary relocation to Osborne Elementary and Ambridge.

“I'm your middle school principal, but you're not going to see a whole lot of me until January,” Aiken said he tells sixth-grade children and parents.

District officials have worked to “protect the integrity of the educational program” during the construction project, Clapper said.

Aiken called the process a “team approach,” involving not only him as middle school principal, but other administrators to make decisions about the building project.

“In other districts, I was in construction meetings,” Aiken said about time spent as an administrator before coming to Quaker Valley.

“Everytime you leave your building, it's time away from kids and it's time away from staff and it's time away from the main thrust of my job as an instructional leader.

“I greatly appreciate the fact that we have a team approach. I'm included in the conversations I need to be included in, but I'm also left to run my building.”

Aiken said he is looking forward to having all classes and cocurricular events in the same building again.

“It's going to be amazing to bring everybody back together — one family,” he said. “We've made it work at Anthony Wayne, but then you walk through here … I think we're going to be that much more thankful.”

Bobby Cherry is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-324-1408 or rcherry@tribweb.com.