Whitefish School District

Thank You for Your Support!

Thanks to the generous support of School District #44 voters, Whitefish High School students and the community will enjoy a greatly updated facility in two very short years! In the flurry of activity since the passage of the bond, I am just now finding time to update our community so that our Whitefish citizens know how the efforts toward our new building are progressing. I will work hard to make sure you receive regular updates on the progress of the design and construction of the new building.

Our school board, after carefully reviewing the pre-design work of the last two years, voted to retrain the architectural and engineering partners DLR and Jackola. As some of you may remember, DLR is an architectural firm that specializes in school design. They have partnered with a local engineering firm, Jackola. Our community has been impressed with the design, commitment, and competence of these two firms. The board also retained Steeplechase advisors to serve in the short interim until it selects an owner’s representative in the near future. RFPs for owner’s representative, as well as for contractors, will soon be released. The board decided to retain Steeplechase in this interim period to continue its pre-design work with DLR and Jackola—agreeing to a modest monthly fee—not the 100-400 thousand dollar contract that had apparently been rumored.

The district will keep the community up to date on the process and progress as we move toward getting the best candidates for owner’s representative and contractor from the proposals we receive. Eventually, the decision as to who best meets the criteria established in the RFPs will be made by the board or trustees—with recommendations from an oversight committee. As usual, any proceedings of the board are open to the public and public input is welcomed.

A design advisory group, consisting of community members, students, parents, board members and experts in a number of fields, has met with DLR, Jackola, and Steeplechase in order to begin the initial work of designing the interior of the high school. DLR and Jackola will be spending a great deal of time “on the ground” in our community over the next months to make certain that our new high school design represents the ideas expressed by our community in its initial conversations over the last two years. The new facility will be equipped to allow our students to learn 21st century skills, and will be a community hub of learning activity. In response to our community’s input, the high school building will be a sustainable, modest, practical, and “authentically Whitefish” design.

As the project proceeds, there will be a number of our Whitefish community leaders working hard to make certain that the design and building stay within the budget, that time lines are kept, and that the progress of the project is shared out to our community so that questions along the way can be answered.

Thank you for your support, enthusiasm, and patience as we continue this journey toward our new high school. You will be seeing regular updates about the progress, and our board of trustees welcomes your questions and insights!