Construction for our new beloved K-8 school brings with it some obvious and visible earth-moving activity, as well as some pesky inconveniences. This memo is to give you as much information as possible about what’s happening to our campus and how you might be affected.

POWER OUTAGE THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND – NO WEB SITE ACCESS
Since our new school will require an underground power infrastructure, PGE is in the process of switching our campus from overhead electrical wiring to underground power.

Beginning at 5 p.m., Friday, May 28, all power will be out at the high school building. The outage may last anywhere from 24-72 hours.

Even if you do not have a student in the high school and it is a long holiday weekend, this electrical switchover affects all parents in the following ways:

• No access to any campus Web sites, including valleycatholic.org, ssmoministries.org, maryville.org, ssmo.org and unitedwethrive.org. However, there will be a basic campus landing page visible for anyone who types in any of our Web addresses from an off-site computer during the power outage.
• No access to Powerschool to access your student’s grades.
• No electronic access to Friday Folder after 5 p.m. Friday, May 28 until next week.
• No ability to retrieve information from a teacher Web page.
• No internet service on campus.
• Online Giving, Facebook, Twitter and Alumni Weekend Registration will still be accessible because the information for those areas is hosted on servers off of our campus.

All power affecting the above is scheduled and anticipated to be restored by the start of business on Tuesday morning, June 1.

POWER OUTAGE IN CONVENT & ADMINISTRATION OFFICES TUESDAY, JUNE 1
Later in the day on June 1, the Convent building will be without power from 2:30-6:30 p.m. This will mean that the groups listed below will be without access to phones, computers, lights, etc. for the afternoon. Unlike the weekend outage, this will not, however, interfere with our Web site availability or the transfer of email communication for computers outside of the convent building.

• All of Valley Catholic Elementary School
• Business Offices for the SSMO Foundation and the Finance Dept.
• Offices of VCS President Sr. Rita Watkins, SSMO Ministries President Sr. Adele Marie Altenhofen and the Convent front desk
• The residence of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon

Power-related outages may occur frequently throughout the construction project. We will always do our best to convey when you could be affected.

Beginning today and throughout the month of June, behind the construction fence, you will start seeing trees come down, the demolition of the brick house and the annex, and the beginnings of some road work.

If you aren’t on campus for awhile, don’t forget to check the Web cams periodically to see what has changed or to watch things as they happen.

Reminder: The live Web cams are not available for viewing over Memorial Day weekend due to the scheduled campus power outage.

Thank you again for your support, understanding and patience!

Click here to see the Groundbreaking video and other great school moments on our Web channel www.valleycatholictv.com

Nearly 200 parents and friends of Valley Catholic and the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon attended the festive groundbreaking event for the new K-8 School Wednesday, May 5. The site where the school will be built was transformed into a Cinco de Mayo fiesta. Everyone gathered to eat, drink, celebrate and watch school representatives don hard hats and dig in the dirt with golden shovels.

VCES Principal Susan Friesen said, “You folks threw a fabulous party last night!!!  Some of us are still shaking ourselves awake to the fact that it is really happening. Teachers are talking excitedly about having rooms that are actually big enough for 28 students per classroom, with sinks and more than just one or two outlets to boot, plus modern technology to assist us with our teaching.”

Students and teachers are excited that construction has begun as more space and newer facilities are a welcome change from being housed in the 1930s Convent and in portable buildings.
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Valley Catholic High school students said goodbye to their beloved annex which has housed Physics and English classrooms for decades. With permission, the students went inside the building and were allowed to show their love for their classroom space and memorialize their old friend before its removal from the site of the new K-8 school. The “graffiti” happened on the inside of the structure so as much of the exterior wood as possible can be re-used and recycled.
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Thanks to Valley Catholic’s phenomenal Information Technology Department, we have two live Web cams filming our construction site so that any time, day or night, you can tune in and watch the progress of the building. One camera faces the north end of the property and the other the east end.

While it will be interesting at any time to observe the activity, it will be especially noteworthy when major events happen such as the demolition of the annex, the felling of trees, and the raising of the walls on the actual building. The cameras are in real-time and will also make it possible for us to create a time-lapsed version of the K-8 School’s construction when the project is complete in the summer of 2011.

You can get to our Web cams any time from our home page at www.unitedwethrive.org. You can also see them here. Be sure to bookmark the site and visit often.