Middle School Gets New Lights, Ramps

With student orientations kicking off and parents scrambling to get kids ready for school, the two-pronged, summer-long race to upgrade the Mill Valley Middle School is complete.

"The fences are down," said Tim Ryan, director of maintenance and operations for the Mill Valley School District, about the fences that barricaded the school campus and the district's offices for most of the summer.

The bulk of the work was the ADA Barrier Removal Project, which removed accessibility barriers throughout the school grounds using nearly $900,000 in funds from Measure C. Workers reused some existing materials by grinding up the asphalt that was removed and using it as base rock under the asphalt of the new ramps, Ryan said.

But while the ramp access project dominated the school campus, the lighting upgrade already has the attention of the teachers.

"The teachers keep saying, 'I keep thinking I left my door open,'" Ryan of the reaction to the new energy-efficient lighting, which offer a stark contrast to the old lamps.

The lighting upgrade replaced 1,300 lighting fixtures, each of which had two lamps, with new full-spectrum lights, removing 162 fixtures in the process. The district recycled the old bulbs and fixtures, Ryan said.

The new lighting throughout the school, including previous light upgrades in the school library and the gym, cost the district $48,612. The upgrades are estimated to reduce the school's energy use by 125,000 kWh annually, which will save the school district about $18,750 annually, Ryan said.

"If you could see the difference in the before and after, you would be amazed," Mill Valley Middle School Principal Matt Huxley said. "This will be a wonderful enhancement to the learning environment."

Funding for the new lighting came from an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant to the city of Mill Valley via the California Energy Commission, as well as PG&E rebates.

The upgrade was spurred by the Marin Energy Management Team (MarinEMT), which assists Marin's cities, towns, school districts and special districts with energy efficiency projects.