Capital High School might reopen on schedule

There's still a chance that Capital High School, which recently suffered a roof collapse over its library, could reopen this coming Monday.

"The goal is still to open Monday," said Jim Crawford, Olympia assistant superintendent of fiscal and operations. "We don't yet have confirmation that can happen for sure, but we haven't ruled that out. We are doing everything we can."

Tim Byrne, supervisor of capital planning and construction, said district officials have been brainstorming options in case the building won't be ready for students by Monday.

"We were thinking about calling (The) Evergreen (State College) or one of the local colleges to see if their buildings would be available, if they start school later, but that's not going to work out," Byrne said. "Maybe if it impacts just one classroom, we could be using Jefferson (Middle School), which is under capacity. Using Olympia High School — that was one of the things that was thrown out there."

According to Crawford, those options are still in the brainstorm stage.

"We're not even close on a decision like that," Crawford said. "Until we really know what does that time line look like, we're really not there yet."

There's a bit of good news, too: 95% of the books in the library were undamaged, which is a massive relief.

Update 12/31: Last night the School Board met, declaring an emergency so work can proceed forthwith.

Crews on the site told the district they still hoped to be able to open the building in time for school to resume Monday.

"We're shooting to get kids back in the school as soon as we can. There a chance we can do that by the fifth," superintendent Bill Lahmann told the board.

The District will decide tomorrow whether that's feasible.