Group Combs High Schools To Help Cv

Central Valley High School junior Tim Liese liked brand new Kentlake High School because kids don’t have to walk half a mile to get to their classes.

Evita Krislock, an active parent in Central Valley School District, realized that new high school buildings can be great, but without a sense of the school’s history, something valuable is missing, she said.

Mike Laws, DECA teacher at CV High, liked getting out into several new high schools to see what’s working and what’s not. “To find out the don’t-do-that’s,” he said.

These three and nearly three dozen other people from the Central Valley community make up the district’s educational specifications committee. The group toured six new or newly remodeled high schools last month, looking for ideas they liked as well as ideas to stay away from.

“The possibilities are just phenomenal,” said Krislock and others.

The ed specs committee has also developed a series of belief statements that will guide the design of the district’s two new high schools.

The belief statements will be presented to the Central Valley school board at its regular Monday meeting.

Those statements touch on curriculum and instruction, school climate and culture, security and safety, as well as the media center, outdoor faciltities and community access.

The overriding belief statement is: “We believe our new schools’ highest priority should be a student-centered environment which maximizes students’ opportunity to learn through the sharing of resources.”

The school board must approve these statements before they’re considered final. The ed specs committee will also develop more specific guidelines for every area of the new schools, from the kitchens to the science labs. That work is expected to be complete by May.

The school district will build a new University High School at Pines and 32nd, as well as totally remodel Central Valley High. Voters passed a $78 million bond issue in September 1998 for the two schools, which are expected to open in September 2002..

The tour of other schools around the state included Kennewick, Moses Lake, Auburn, and two Edmonds high schools.

Kentlake High School, which opened in 1997, seems to have won the most praise. Its cost was $55 million, Kent officials said.

Liese compared its design to a Stealth bomber.

“You walk in through the nose, and the commons is right there. Then the classes are back like in the wings,” he said.

The concept of small project rooms, which a small group of students could use at times, or smaller computer labs, appealed to some committee members, including Laws.

Even little things caught their eye, Krislock said, such as positioning some hallway signs above head level, so that students could see the signs even when halls are crowded.

“I think going out and looking at some of the other new buildings allows us to see what’s going on, what’s working and what’s not,” Laws said.