Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Navajo Elementary School’s restoration is nearly complete, marking almost two years since a fire put the school out of commission.
In October 2018, the SUSD Governing Board voted 4-1, with then-board president Barbara Perleberg dissenting, to restore the school rather than rebuild it entirely. This decision followed a fire a few months earlier that closed Navajo, 4525 N. Granite Reef Road, and sent students to a campus at 7501 E. Oak St.
Dennis Roehler, SUSD director of building services, presented the update at the board’s April 7 meeting along with a video showcasing the campus. He also outlined plans for a new bus lane, longer drop-off location and playground shade structures, which the board approved on consent as part of two items.
Mr. Roehler said there was an open house scheduled for April 18 at Navajo but plans changed.
“As this started to unfold and we weren’t able to have these group meetings and these different activities, I thought it might be appropriate for us to go to Navajo and do a short video,” he said during the meeting.
During the video, Mr. Roehler and Navajo principal Matthew Patzlaff provide a virtual tour of the campus with looks in the front office, nurse’s office, classrooms and hallways. Throughout the virtual tour, Mr. Patzlaff explained the background of the upgrades and his goals for the school.
Mr. Roehler explained in the video the campus work is largely complete and needs furniture and the other aspects the board later approved on consent.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to see you all back in your school,” Mr. Roehler said to end the video. “It’s been a long haul for all of us. I’m proud of the work we got accomplished here. There’s much, much more to see but we don’t want to take up too much of your time. We hope that you like what you see here at your new Navajo campus.”
Other campus work includes a complete replacement of the air conditioning, electrical system, fire sprinklers and alarm, security system, floor and ceiling tiles and lighting. Mr. Roehler said overall, the shell of the building was the only aspect unchanged during the project.
Mr. Roehler also reported the status of the school’s Building D as being asbestos free, lead free and has new sprinklers and fire alarms but is a shell of a building. He estimated it would cost $300,000 to $500,000 to convert that building into whatever use the district wants, but he foresees it being used for growth since the school’s other uses fit into the other buildings.
Overall, he said each building had some work done while some had more construction than others.
Mr. Roehler proposed, as part of the first consent agenda item, spending about $1.05 million to create a new bus lane on Camelback Road on the school’s south end. Typically, buses would stop in the street and drop-off at the curb but the proposal adds a bus lane on the south end of the school.
Furthermore, on the southeast side of campus, there is a short drop-off area for parents that has seen traffic backed up onto Camelback Road regularly. Mr. Roehler’s proposal would add 40 parking spaces and triple the queue line for parent drop-off but would cut into the school’s field a bit.
Plans call for the pre-k and kindergarten playgrounds along Camelback Road to be moved to make way for the bus lane. Playgrounds and gardens would move to a more central location within the campus.
The second consent item would be paying almost $123,000 for shade structures to go over those newly-moved playgrounds.
“When all is said and done, Navajo’s ready to go,” Mr. Roehler said. “Navajo will be a school of the future that, that community can count on and will be able to enjoy for many years to come.”
Overall, the district will spend about $5.8 million on the restoration of the school. Mr. Roehler said he was proud of the work that was done and the lower costs.
Overall, board member Jann-Michael Greenburg, echoing similar sentiments from the rest of the board, said he was happy to see the end result and thinks the community will be thrilled.
“We all know the fire was really devastating at a very inopportune time and it really upended the lives of our staff and our teachers and our students,” he said.
“Not as much as our current situation but it was a dramatic turn of events so I think they’re going to be really pleased to have really a fresh start in August.”
By 
