Board Approves Design For Liberty Lake Elementary
The Central Valley School Board has approved overall designs for the planned Liberty Lake Elementary School and the renovation of Bowdish Junior High.
School officials this week also said the Bowdish renovation may result in some relocation of students during construction.
The district may move all seventh-graders or all ninth-graders while renovation work is under way, said Bowdish principal Glenna Bouge. Bowdish students could be sent elsewhere during all or part of the 1997-98 school year, said CV Superintendent Wally Stanley.
“Wherever staff members have visited (other schools around the state),” he said, “we’ve been advised if there’s any way possible to not have all students there during the remodel.”
“Once we have an idea of what’s possible” in terms of temporary student moves,” Stanley added, “then we’ll have to develop some kind of forum to see what parents think.” That process will unfold during the next few months.
The school board’s approval Monday of the overall designs of the two schools frees architects and the planning committees to start filling in the details.
“Where the door swings go, the furniture … all that kind of stuff,” said Steve McNutt of Northwest Architectural Co., who is handling the Liberty Lake school.
The Liberty Lake plan is a skewed rectangle of classrooms, ringing an outdoor courtyard. On one side of the complex, the gymnasium, music stage and multi-purpose room jut out.
A desire for natural light in every classroom led McNutt to use the courtyard concept.
“And you’re not going to be a guinea pig for this. We did a courtyard for the new Mead elementary school and they like it,” he said.
The 58,400-square foot elementary school will be designed to house 24 classrooms and about 600 students. Construction is expected to start next May. The school is expected to open in the fall of 1998.
Fifteen acres of the 37-acre site will be developed for the elementary school. The remaining land is designated for a future junior high school.
The building portion of the project is within its budget of $6.4 million. McNutt warned the board, however, that less expensive materials or reduced scope might prove necessary to stay within budget as design work goes on.
Currently, plans are for brick or masonry walls and a metal roof.
The plan’s sloped roof provided a moment of levity at Monday’s meeting. “We should name the roof the ‘Tompkins’ roof,” said board chairman Cynthia McMullen, to laughter from the small audience. Former school board member Linda Tompkins lobbied persistently to have schools with flat roofs remodeled with some slope.
Renovation plans at Bowdish include some striking changes from the existing building. First, two clusters of classrooms will allow for team teaching, blocking or work in large groups.
Second, the wing of the school that currently extends west toward Skipworth Road would be partially demolished and rebuilt in a much shorter, broader form, filling what’s now open space between the school’s three wings.
Also, the school will have two entrances, one for parent drop-offs and visitors and one for buses. The current front will continue to be the primary entrance.
Plans also call for renovation of the school’s upper gymnasium.
Construction on the first phase of the $7.8 million remodeling project is due to begin next summer. Completion of that is expected in August 1998. The second phase of construction, primarily including the gym, would start in spring of 1999 and be complete by that fall.
, DataTimes