School administration moves back into historic offices

The Ponca City School’s administration is flipping the old administration building off Grand. This renovation was part of the 2009 bond package and construction finally started this spring. Ponca City Schools Superintendent, Dr. David Pennington said this is a $4 million dollar project. He said $850,000 came from the bond, while the remaining $3 million came from the building fund.

“We took out all the wiring, all the plumbing, demolished the entire inside of the building, basically taking it down to its shell and starting over again,” Pennington said.

This building was built in 1921 and this decision came in the knick of time. They wanted to act on this before the building got in such a condition of disrepair it was unusable. Pennington said taking pride in Ponca City history is a good investment in his book.

The old administration building has been vacate since 2008, and was last used to house the alternative school. Pennington and his staff will move over to that building and hand the current office over to other school related sectors.

“We’re not taking everything out of here,” Pennington said. “Our technology will still stay here, so that department will still be in the building. Our school nurses, our school mental health psychologist and therapist will still be here. We’re going to move child nutrition to this facility, they desperately need space. Not only do they need space for staff, but they need space for food storage and so we’ll be able to accommodate them in this facility. And there may eventually be things that move to the location, but that’s the plan for now, just to move child nutrition and create some more freezer space for them.”

The renovation is expected to be done in January of 2015. But Pennington said since the build is old and there hasn’t been much work done to it during its lifetime that date is subject to change.