LPOSD plans $18.5 million improvements to Sandpoint Middle School

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Lake Pend Oreille School District Superintendent Dr. Becky Meyer met with families before the regular school board meeting Nov. 12 to answer questions on planned renovations to Sandpoint Middle School, as well as construction of a new career technical education building. 

The district will pay for the $18.5 million improvements with a combination of grants and funds from the state, she said.

The state awarded LPOSD $15.1 million from the School Modernization Facilities Fund — which House Bill 521 established in 2024 to address Idaho’s school infrastructure problems — in addition to $1.397 million annually from House Bill 292, to make improvements to the district.

LPOSD received another $3.5 million from Idaho Career Ready Students to build the new CTE building.

Sandpoint Middle School.
Courtesy photo.

“The state sold bonds. Everyone who got their initial 10-year plan in, it had to be approved by the board and submitted and then approved by the Idaho Department of Education. We were like the second in the state [to submit] so we were all over it,” said Meyer at the Nov. 12 “coffee klatch” event, which took place at The Bernklau in Sandpoint.

After vetting multiple bids, the school board chose Longwell + Trapp Architects to spearhead construction of the CTE building and the renovation of the existing middle school. LTA has renovated multiple schools throughout the area and designed Winton Elementary School in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai Technical Education Campus in Rathdrum.

The board is currently considering three bids for the project’s general contractor, who will work with LTA to determine which of the improvements requested by the board, staff, students and parents can be accomplished within the current budget. The board plans to make a decision on the general contractor during the Dec. 10 board meeting.

See a draft of the district’s 10-year plan, complete with the desired improvements to SMS, at bit.ly/40MeIka.

“We’re continuing it to be a draft [plan] because, after COVID, the cost of things has gone up so significantly, so you put something out there, and then a year later, it may actually cost more. So I just wanted to keep the word ‘draft’ so that people wouldn’t think there was no deviation from this plan,” said Meyer.

Top priorities at SMS include replacing the building’s plumbing, HVAC system, 1950s-era electrical wiring and outdated windows.

“My biggest concern is safety. If you’ve seen those windows, they go into the classroom, so if there were a need to evacuate, we’d have to break the windows and then the metal bars. To do an evacuation from that building right now is very unsafe, in my opinion,” said Meyer, adding that she would also invest in 3M bullet-resistant film for the windows around the building’s perimeter.

The district is also looking to allow more natural light into the building and reconfigure the interior walls to regulate classroom sizes. 

Parents at the Nov. 12 gathering raised concerns over accessibility, the flow of traffic in and out of the campus, and the size of both the cafeteria and the students’ lockers, among others.

The new CTE building, which will be located on the south end of the Sandpoint High School campus, will be the district’s first project.

“It’s going to be similar, probably, to a shop. It’s going to have two bays for residential carpentry and, hopefully, automotive eventually — that’s what I wrote the grant for — and then a few classrooms and a lab for, like, health occupation,” said Meyer.

Once the project is contracted and underway, workers will begin updating the middle school in sections in an effort to keep the campus open through the entire process, which is estimated to be complete by fall 2027.

With so many proposed changes, some parents questioned why the district wouldn’t simply construct a new building.

“A new middle school for that amount of students would be $50 million, so that gives you an idea,” Meyer said. “As we’re talking about all of this, the architect is going to have to figure out the highest priorities that we can get done for $18.5 million.”

LPOSD’s 10-year plan, including proposed improvements to SMS, is available at:

 bit.ly/40MeIka.