Ben Rush in Redmond holds groundbreaking ceremony, construction on new school to begin this summer

Published 3:57 pm Monday, June 20, 2011

Syd Mack has been teaching at Benjamin Rush Elementary School in Redmond since it opened in April 1970.

On Friday, the sixth-grade teacher was part of another beginning with the school. Mack was one of about a dozen individuals to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for the school’s new building, which will replace the current building.

The new Ben Rush will be located at the school’s current site at 6101 152nd Ave. N.E. near the current building and is part of a Lake Washington School District (LWSD) modernization program that was approved by voters by bonds in 1998 and 2006. The program includes remodeling or replacing old buildings throughout the district.

According to district documents, the cost of the new, 65,306 square-foot Ben Rush is about $16.3 million. The building will accommodate 550 students from kindergarten through fifth-grade. Ben Rush’s current enrollment is about 400 with kindergartners through sixth-graders.

Construction for the new building is scheduled to begin this summer with an opening scheduled for winter 2013.

“It’ll be neat to have a new building,” Mack said.

But Mack, at 65, will not be teaching full-time when the new building opens as she is retiring at the end of this school year. She plans to return occasionally as a substitute and said coming to a new building will probably help with her transition because she won’t reminisce about her old classroom and other significant locations around the building.

Sixth-grader Tim Corey also broke ground during the ceremony.

He said he was proud to be chosen for the ceremony and although he is leaving, would like to come back and visit Ben Rush once the new building is built. Tim is excited to attend Rose Hill Junior High School next year but is sad to be leaving Ben Rush. He said this is mostly because he’ll be leaving good friends and teachers.

“I’ve had some fun times here,” he said.

While Tim and Mack will no longer be at Ben Rush, Emery McClellan will be. As a kindergartner, the 5-year-old will attend Ben Rush in the current and new buildings.

A second-generation Cheetah, Emery also participated in the groundbreaking. Her father Derek McClellan attended Ben Rush as a kindergartner 25 years ago and was a student there until the sixth-grade.

“I had the same teacher as my dad,” Emery said about what she likes about attending her father’s alma mater.

Derek, who attended the ceremony, said returning to Ben Rush has been nostalgic for him.

“I was surprised to see it looked exactly the same,” he said.

Derek added that in addition to Emery, two more of his children will be coming to Ben Rush in the next few years and benefit from the new building, which was designed by Seattle-based Integrus Architecture.

Ben Rush principal Brad Stolz has been at the school for two years and said the new building’s design was a collaborative effort between the architects and the community. The school’s staff is very collaborative, often working together and Stolz said the new building was designed with this in mind.

“This will absolutely facilitate teaming and collaborating,” he said.

Stolz said the community has been very supportive throughout the planning process and a lot of it has been because Integrus listened to them and what they wanted. One of those things was to keep the surrounding wooded area because it is a source of creative play for the kids.

Mack commended the architects for listening to the community and said even though many people are attached to the current Ben Rush building, the new one will be a good thing.

“Change is good,” she said. “We all need change.”