UPDATE: A SPS spokesperson has clarified Gonzales’ presentation and tells CHS that Madrona Elementary was mistakenly left off the feeder list. Madrona students will, indeed, be part of the Meany system.

Progress is being made on the renovations to Meany Middle School, which is still on schedule to open for Capitol Hill students in the fall of 2017.

A small group of community members gathered in Meany’s cafeteria on Tuesday to hear about the next phase of the renovation from project manager Vince Gonzales and members of the architecture and construction teams. The $17.6 million renovation is expected to be at 95% completion by next June.

Chanda Oatis of Van Asselt Elementary has been selected to be the principal of the new Meany Middle School. At the last community meeting, determining the school’s curriculum was a large area of interest for parents — Gonzales said Oatis will begin those discussions once she finishes up her time at Van Asselt.

Diagram of planned renovations

A major discussion point with the small group of neighbors at Tuesday’s meeting was the extent to which construction would disrupt their daily lives.

Residents were concerned about parking, dust, how many workers would be on-site at once, the length of the workday, and how much weekend work there would be. The construction team said they would look into reducing the amount of street parking needed for their teams, that the number of people on-site at any given time would be relatively low, and that the workday would be from 7AM-3:30PM with no current plans for weekend work.

The outstanding question from the last community meeting of which elementary schools would feed Meany has been tentatively resolved. The current proposed feeder schools are John Muir Elementary, Leschi Elementary, Lowell Elementary, McGilvra Elementary, Montlake Elementary, Stevens Elementary, and TOPS K-8. This list does not include Madrona which was still in the running as a possible feeder school at the last meeting.