North Salem High School construction: A year of sacrifice for the Vikings

Pete Martini
Salem Statesman Journal
A look at the progress being made with the new North Salem High School gym.

North Salem High School is getting significant upgrades thanks to the 2018 voter-approved Salem-Keizer Public Schools bond aimed at improving facilities across the district.

The improvements came with a sacrifice during the 2019-20 school year, as North Salem was without its own gym and other facilities.

“That came with some uncomfortable calls with families,” North Salem athletic director Brodie Cavaille said. “And that came with reassuring them that it will end and go back to normal. But certainly there were some big changes that had to be made.”

As we get closer to the summer, the projects are in the stretch run, with the goal of being finished at the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

Construction continues at North Salem High School.

COVID-19 doesn't mean delays

With much of society shut down the past couple months because of the coronavirus pandemic, has that disrupted the construction timeline at North Salem?

“The timeline hasn’t changed,” said Karma Krause, capital construction public engagement manager for Salem-Keizer Public Schools. “The project is still on track to reach substantial completion by fall 2020.”

Cavaille said the pandemic-forced school shutdown has likely helped construction.

“It’s allowing construction to work uninhibited through our building right now,” he said. “Which I think allows them to get their stuff done more timely.”

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Right now, the hope is that fall sports will begin on time. But with many things during the pandemic, nothing is set in stone at the moment.

“I think it’s fair to say that our representatives are having those conversations,” Cavaille said. “We have a 5A rep, a 6A rep, we have league reps, we have all that. And I think they’re having those cabinet-level meetings with the executive board of the OSAA.”

Construction on North Salem High School's bond project continues.

What are the details for the project?

In 2018, voters approved a $620 million bond aimed at improving schools across Salem-Keizer Public Schools.

North Salem’s project, which costs $73.5 million, is the largest project in the 2018 bond program, and it began in April 2019.

According to a document from the school district, here are the additional or expanded space projects being done at North Salem:

  • Twenty new general classrooms
  • One new science lab
  • Two career and technical/vocational education program spaces
  • Satellite commons and kitchen
  • Additional parking
  • Replacement P.E. spaces
  • New main and auxiliary gyms
  • Spaces to support Special Education
  • Expanded administration and support areas.

The district also outlined other improvements that will be made during the project construction:

  • Exterior seal
  • Roofing replacement
  • Elevator replacement
  • Heating/ventilation improvements
  • Storm drain line replacement
  • Intercom system upgrades
  • Card access system upgrades
  • Music storage upgrades
  • Expanded wireless capacity
  • Seismic improvements
  • Renovate existing science lab
  • Security improvements to increase visibility of main entry from office
A look at North Salem High School's construction.

Sacrifices made during school year

North Salem officials knew that with the construction, they would be without a home gym for a full school year, so they began making plans that involved the use of its two feeder middle schools — Parrish and Houck — as secondary homes for athletic team practices.

“In order to allow them do what they need to do, we set a deadline that we weren’t going to be there before 4 (p.m.) or even 5 (p.m.) in some cases,” Cavaille said. “That often put our practices at the earliest at like 5 o’clock, and sometimes in the 6-6:30 hour.”

Without access to their gym, the North Salem volleyball and boys and girls basketball teams used the other five Salem-Keizer high schools as designated home facilities.

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In the fall, the volleyball team used McKay, West Salem, McNary and South Salem. In the winter season, the girls basketball team used Sprague, South Salem, McNary, West Salem and McKay, and the boys basketball team used McKay, McNary, South Salem and West Salem.

“That was all based on their schedules,” Cavaille said. “So it came down to whoever’s gym was open for the night we needed a home game, we took it over and made it our own.”

Also during the construction, North Salem’s weight room has been disabled, so they have used the old Olinger Pool facility as their weight room.

There also wasn’t any on-campus student parking because of the construction, so the Salem First Church of the Nazarene on Market Street was used.

Cavaille said the student-athletes and coaches did a great job during a tough situation.

“They are really good at following the lead of their coaches. So we wanted to make sure the coaches went out of their way to make them feel at home, make them feel that this was a short-term thing that had a big reward at the end,” he said. “Obviously, we had to work a little harder with our seniors, who had to deal with all the turmoil to not play in the new gym.

“At the end of the basketball seasons, and at the end of our volleyball season, our teams and coaches were tired,” Cavaille added. “They were ready for things to be different.”

Construction on North Salem High School's bond project continues.

Excitement for the future

North Salem will be gaining a new gym, new locker rooms and other athletic facilities, but Cavaille stressed the importance of the academic gains by doing this project.

“We’re benefitting from getting a lot of new athletic facilities out of this, but certainly that’s not the point of this whole bond,” he said. “The point was to upgrade the gym to make it functional for school. But the other big point was adding classrooms. And we added a new common space. So you’re getting a combination of just replacing what was there before, and then you’re getting brand new classrooms that we didn’t have.”

North Salem went through a lot this school year during the construction, and Cavaille said that it was worth it and the school community is excited about the future.

“As a whole, this is just a game-changer for North Salem,” he said. “Across the board. Not an athletics thing, just educationally, it’s a big change for us. I just want to express how appreciative I am, and how successful we were in doing this last year athletically, and that was entirely because of our coaches and kids.”

Pete Martini covers high school and college sports for the Statesman Journal. You can contact Pete at pmartini@StatesmanJournal.com, 503-399-6730 and follow @PeteMartiniSJ