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The INDEPENDENT, February 1, 2012
Chalk Talk
Chalk Talk is a column of information about Ver-
nonia schools. This column was provided by Su-
perintendent Dr. Ken Cox.
I recently read an article in which the author
talked about a different set of ABCs that would
help us have a better start to the New Year. He
indicated that our ability to change our Attitude is
important. Among the animal kingdom I believe
that we are unique in our ability to determine
how we react to, or accept our circumstances. In
essence, no matter what our circumstances, we
can choose to be happy or we can choose to be
miserable, but the choice is ours. We may not
be able to change the wind, but we can learn to
adjust our sails.
The next word in this set of ABCs is to Believe
in yourself. We must believe in our own ability to
be better and to do better. Each of us had the
ability to influence the world around us for better.
Do we make positive comments to our children,
or negative ones? Do we ‘do our best’ or is
‘good enough’ more often our perspective? We
need to have confidence not only in who we are
and in what we can do, but also know that we
can change the future, one day at a time, by
changing what we plan on doing today. And be-
lieve it or not, that also changes the past be-
cause in just 24 hours
from now, what you are
doing will be in the
past.
Courage represents
the final letter in this triplet. There are two types
of courage, that courage that comes from adren-
aline, that could also be called bravery, and the
more common type: the courage to make the
right choice day after day after day.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “Whatever you
do, you need courage. Whatever course you de-
cide on, there is always someone to tell you that
you are wrong. There are always difficulties aris-
ing that tempt you to believe that your critics are
right. To map out a course of action and follow it
to an end requires some of the same courage
that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but
it takes brave men and women to win them.”
It is my hope that each of you who reads this
will recognize that we have within us the power
to change our Attitude. To do this we must have
the Courage to make correct choices and to al-
ways Believe in ourselves and those around us,
especially our children. As parents we are the
first and best teachers and they learn more from
our examples than from our words.
Free children’s chewable vitamins
with enrollment at Pharmacy
Vernonia Pharmacy is offer-
ing a free children’s vitamin
program. There are no strings
attached. Parents just need to
stop in at the pharmacy and
enroll their child or children up
to age 12. Each child will re-
ceive a 30-day supply of chil-
dren’s chewable vitamins each
month.
The program goal is simple
– Healthy, happy kids!
Sign your kids up today at
Vernonia
Pharmacy,
622
Bridge St, or call 503-429-0591
for more information.
There’s still time to sign up for
spring ball teams on February 23
It’s last call for spring ball
team sign-ups. The final regis-
tration session is February 23
from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the
Washington Grade School li-
brary. Sign-ups will be taken for
t-ball, baseball and softball.
For more information, con-
tact Maria Lemay (t-ball) at
503-429-1067, Brooke Morri-
son (baseball) at 503-728-
8427, or Katie Poetter (softball)
at 503-429-0700.
More information on the financial journey to the new schools
by Dr. Ken Cox, Superinten-
dent
In a previous article I dis-
cussed some of the financial
history of our new schools proj-
ect. As you know, it all started
with $13.6 million bond that the
patrons of the Vernonia School
District passed in November of
2009. I have had many discus-
sions with the school board and
with everyone involved in our
fundraising effort, and I want to
ensure you that we are not in-
terested in placing any more
taxes on the members of our
community, and none of the
bridge financing that we are in
the process of procuring to fin-
ish construction will result in
additional property taxes.
Our current project budget
stands at $40 million and can
be broken down as follows:
• Construction – $30 m.
• Design/Permits – $4.2 m.
• Project management –
$0.8 m.
• Environmental: Testing/
Mitigation – $2.6 m.
• Property acquisition –
Free Children’s Vitamin Program
No strings attached.
The only requirement is for a parent to stop into
the pharmacy and enroll their children.
You receive a free 30 day supply of children’s
chewable vitamins every month!
For children up through age12
Our Goal: Healthy, Happy kids!
Why? Because we care!
Vernonia Pharmacy
622 Bridge St.,Vernonia
503-429-0591
Mon - Fri 9am to 6pm Saturday 9am -1pm
$2.6 m.
• Fundraising/Financing
costs – $1.0 m.
• Miscellaneous costs –
$0.3 m.
• Contingency – $0.5 m.
• TOTAL – $40 million
Steve Effros, our project
manager, and I have worked
closely with BOORA, our archi-
tectural firm, and P&C Con-
struction to ensure that we
have the best building we can
for what we can afford.
If you have been following
this project closely, you know
we initially designed the Ver-
nonia Rural Sustainability Cen-
ter (VRSC) as a separate build-
ing to house university part-
ners, high school science, art,
shop and the district office, in-
cluding meeting rooms. As we
progressed through the design
of the rest of the school we set
aside a $1.5 million placehold-
Action Ads
INEXPENSIVE – EFFECTIVE
503-429-9410
$4.50
$5.50 for the first
10 words, then just
10¢ for each
additional word
er for that building. However,
as we got further into the de-
sign it was apparent that that
building would cost $3.3 mil-
lion. Because of this and other
factors that were increasing the
cost of the project, we deter-
mined that we would postpone
the construction of this building
and move the classes into the
new school. This would have
saved us over $3 million, but
the changes required in the
new building to incorporate the
science classrooms has cost
about $230,000.
Some of the other cost in-
creases have been the result of
making sure that we have a
building that will last for a very
long time. We decided that we
would use a standard multi-ply
asphalt roof rather than a sin-
gle ply rubberized (TPO) roof
($70,000), and use long wear-
ing linoleum flooring, rather
than vinyl composition tile
($90,000), because it would
save us thousands in annual
maintenance costs.
As you can see from these
three examples, costs on the
site can add up quickly, and
there are many, many more
items like this in the $3,000 -
$10,000 range. In spite of
these necessary price increas-
es, we continue to look for
ways to save. Each week we
meet to discuss the issues that
have come up, and their solu-
tions. I have some samples in
my office from the company
that is doing the cabinets for
the new school. They recently
showed us a white maple ve-
neer product that will be used
for all of the Library shelving
and woodwork. By changing to
this product, they not only were
able to save us $5,000 but
gave us a much more durable
and long lasting surface. By
working with them we have
been able to save over
$100,000 by using the shelving
that we already have, much of
which was obtained just a few
years ago right after the flood
and is in excellent condition.
We also met late last year to
discuss the kitchen equipment
and what could be used at the
new school and, once again,
were able to save nearly
$50,000.
As you can see, the final
price for our schools is a mov-
ing target. It constantly
changes, sometimes to our ad-
vantage because of a cost-sav-
ing idea that a sub-contractor
suggests, and sometimes in
the other direction because of
unforeseen circumstances that
typically come up during con-
struction. If you are interested
in more of these details please
feel free to call my office (503-
429-5891) and set up an ap-
pointment; I would be happy to
share them with you.