Freeman School District plans to spend about $30 million to modernize its high school and elementary school in Rockford, Wash., over the next two years, beginning with a contract it expects to award early next month that also will include expansion of Freeman High School.

Superintendent Sergio Hernandez says the district will open bids for that work at the end of April and plans to award a contract early in May. The high school modernization and expansion project currently is expected to cost about $17 million. That work will be followed next year by a $9.5 million project to modernize and expand Freeman Elementary School. Additional funds have been set aside for site improvements for better pedestrian safety, traffic flow, and busing areas.

The district's high school, elementary school, and middle school all are clustered on one campus near the district's administrative offices, at 15001 S. Jackson Road, in Rockford, about 15 miles southeast of Spokane.

Voters in the district, which has more than 900 full-time students, recently approved a $19.5 million bond measure to help pay for the projects, and the district will receive about $10.5 million in matching funds from the state, Hernandez says. The buildings were constructed more than 30 years ago, and the district needs to expand and upgrade the spaces to meet growth, Hernandez says.

ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, is designing the school projects, and the Spokane office of Construction Services Group is providing construction management through Educational Service District 101.

In the high school project, Hernandez says the contractor will completely modernize the 52,000-square-foot structure and also will add 18,000 square feet of space to it.

Additions will include a second gymnasium that will have bleacher seating for 1,100 people and will comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, new science labs, and a vocational-technical area. The current practice gym will be converted to a shop area, Hernandez says.

During construction, the students will attend class in portable classrooms that will be erected between the high school building and elementary school, but the district expects to have access to part of the high school building by winter, and plans to occupy the upgraded building fully for the 2010-2011 school year. Then, the district's elementary school students will use the portable classrooms while the elementary school is being revamped.

The elementary school will be expanded by about 9,000 square feet. The hallways will be widened, classroom space will be added, and a gymnasium will be built. Currently, the gymnasium doubles as a cafeteria, which the elementary school shares with the nearby middle school, Hernandez says. In the project, the gymnasium will be converted to a combination cafeteria and multipurpose room with a stage, and a separate gymnasium will be built for the elementary school.

Hernandez says that the elementary school project is expected to be completed in the summer of 2011.