School gives kids room to grow

The screeching of fire alarms was annoying at first and then increasingly so.

After a few minutes of testing, the noise reverberated like a bouncing pool ball in one’s skull. Add to that the pounding of hammers and buzz of power tools, and you have one heck of a headache.

Despite the noise, Principal Georgeanne Griffith wore a happy smile Thursday as she led a tour through the new Timberlake Junior High School.

“I’m really excited to be here,” Griffith said, accepting a pair of foam earplugs from a contractor.

With classes set to begin Monday, workers frantically put finishing touches on the building, stocked vending machines and lined books on the shelves in the library.

Next door, at Timberlake Junior/Senior High, seventh- and eighth-grade teachers packed boxes to move into their new classrooms.

The junior-senior high opened in 1998 with 650 students in grades 7 through 12. By this year, enrollment had soared to 800. With the opening of Timberlake Junior High, the school district will be able to alleviate overcrowding at the Spirit Lake school.

Teachers will benefit, too.

As the junior-senior high filled up, teachers were forced to share classrooms. Some roamed from room to room, pushing their supplies on rolling carts.

When the junior high pulls out Monday and moves next door, Timberlake High will have four empty classrooms and 300 fewer students. The 12-room junior high will be big enough for all the teachers to have their own rooms.

“The teachers can have everything they need at their fingertips, rather than guessing and pushing it around on a cart,” Griffith said. “It’s easier to be ready when kids walk into class.”

Griffith said splitting the junior high and high school will mean 12-year-old seventh-graders won’t be in the same school as 18-year-old seniors.

“That’s cause for concern for a parent,” Griffith said. She said there weren’t any issues that arose because students of varying ages were under the same roof, but the setting wasn’t ideal.

Voters approved funding for the $4.5 million junior high in October 2003 as part of a $6.9 million school bond.

The school’s architectural design acknowledges the area’s logging and timber heritage.

The school has a high, sloping ceiling with exposed beams of rough-cut timber with matching headers above doorways. The hardwood flooring in the gym is deeply grained.

Because the district is expecting enrollment to continue to grow, the school was designed so additions could be built on either wing of classrooms.