Middle school courtyard is set for a makeover
January 18, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga
It’s meant for when school is in session and the weather is nice. But it’s in Snoqualmie. Not exactly “never the twain shall meet,” but close.
The courtyard at Snoqualmie Middle School will receive a $2 million makeover this year, turning it into an indoor facility similar to Wildcat Court at Mount Si High School.
That way, Principal Vernie Newell said, the school hopes to get more use out of it during the 10 months of classes.
Right now the courtyard has benches, floors on different levels and trees. Students can study, eat and hang out. They also can get drenched in rain and get Advanced Placement credits in “Hypothermia 101.”
OK, so maybe it’s not that bad, but the area is underused, Newell said.
Once it’s enclosed and the floor is leveled, it will serve all of the above purposes, plus serve as a utility room for class activities like science projects, he said.
“This will add approximately 6,000 square feet of interior space,” Ryan Stokes, the Snoqualmie Valley School District’s director of finance, wrote in an email.
Work would last from June until December of this year, with the bulk of the work done this summer.
Besides protection from bad weather, and a large room, the school would also gain intangibles, Stokes said.
“Enhanced supervision of the multiple wings of the building,” he wrote, and an “enhanced sense of community among the students, as more foot traffic can be directed toward the center of the building instead of around the outside.”
Stokes said he expects the project to go out to bid this spring. The district will pay for it with monies from the 2009 bond that set aside cash to fix the school. The building was built in 1972 and last remodeled in 2000.
The district has targeted Snoqualmie Middle School to become a ninth-graders-only campus by 2013 at the earliest. The work will benefit any student population, regardless of age, Stokes wrote.
“We also hope to be able to maximize taxpayer dollars by taking advantage of a favorable bid climate,” he wrote.
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