By David Mayne
Kellogg Middle School at Powell and 69th Ave. will be rebuilt and ready for SE Portland middle schoolers in the fall of 2021. The work on Kellogg is happening thanks to public support for the Portland Public Schools May 2017 Bond.
Kellogg will be the first entirely new school building in SE after many decades and will provide students and staff with a state of the art educational facility. The recent modernization of Franklin High was a combination of new and renovated historic structures.
A group of citizen volunteers is providing input on the design through Kellogg’s Design Advisory Group (DAG) which includes parents, teachers, students, school board members and community representatives. The goal of the DAG is to develop a comprehensive, equitable and visionary middle school campus design with authentic school community engagement.
The public will have a chance to offer their ideas at the upcoming Kellogg Public Design Workshop on Saturday, February 10, 9 am to noon at Franklin High School, 5405 SE Woodward St. Free childcare is provided for the workshop and translation will be available in Spanish, Somali, Cantonese Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian.
Prior to the Bond, the PPS School Board reviewed construction options for Kellogg and determined that full replacement would cost less than an extensive renovation and allow the district to build a modern, healthy and safe facility while meeting evolving educational programmatic needs of a new middle school.
Because Kellogg has been modified extensively throughout its 101 year-old history, it is not considered historically significant by the National Register of Historic Places but the decision to rebuild does not mean the historic legacy of the school will be forgotten. The new Kellogg will preserve parts of the existing building and integrate these components into the new building and site to preserve its memory.
The current timeline for construction is begins in the Spring of 2019 and continues through early 2021. Once a contractor has been selected, the project team develops a detailed construction plan and present it to the community along with anticipated neighborhood impacts.
The site plan includes multi-use play fields and a covered play structure for use during non-school hours by neighborhood residents, both informally and through the District’s Civic Use of Buildings system.
The plan will improve walkability through the school grounds with pedestrian pathways across the site and access to bike parking for neighborhood residents during non-school hours.
In addition to Kellogg, the May 2017 Bond is also funding the rebuilding or modernization of Benson, Madison and Lincoln High Schools while providing $150 million for health and safety projects for schools across the district.
