Redmond’s planned new secondary choice school remains in the permitting process, but it received a substantial financial boost Tuesday from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to help fund equipment for the school’s four laboratories and professional development for teachers.
The foundation announced a $400,000 grant award to the Lake Washington School District’s (LWSD) new STEM school for “creations of labs and professional development for teachers who will be embracing STEM education,” according to Bonnie Benjamin-Phariss, the foundation’s program director for education.
“I think there is a role for private philanthropy in assisting the public school system,” said Sue Coliton, the foundation’s vice president. “This grant will help catalyze a type of teaching.”
The choice school would serve students in grades 9-12 from throughout the district on a lottery basis and have a curriculum dedicated to science, technology, engineering and mathematics — also know as STEM. The seven-acre building site is located on property next to Alcott Elementary at 4213 228th Ave. N.E. in unincorporated King County between Redmond and Sammamish city limits.
While programming and planning for the new STEM school is well underway, construction of the new building is still in the permitting process with King County, according to district officials. Construction of the new school has been stalled by two residents’ appeals of the King County hearing examiner’s recommendation to approve the conditional use permit, according to Forest Miller, the district’s director of facilities.
A hearing date for those appeals has yet to be determined and a permit cannot be granted until the appeals are decided upon by the hearing examiner, said Miller, who declined to comment on the appellants’ case. Miller said the start date for construction on the new school is still up in the air because of the pending appeals, but the district is shooting to open the new school — at least part of it — by this fall.
The planned opening of the new STEM school is set to coincide with the district’s switch to a new grade configuration in the fall. Starting in the fall, all LWSD high schools will serve students in ninth through 12th grades, while junior highs will be changed to middle schools for sixth- through eighth-graders and elementary schools will serve students through fifth grade.
A THREE-PHASE PROJECT
Once the district gets approval for construction, the entire foundation of the school would be built and from there, the project would be built in three phases because “there is not enough time to build the entire school by fall,” Miller said. The first phase of the project is expected to be open to 150 freshman and 150 sophomores by this fall for the start of the 2012-13 school year. The second phase is expected to be complete by January of 2013 and the entire construction project done by May or June of 2013, according to Miller.
The district chose the three-phase construction approach for the new STEM school because there will be only 300 students using the school that first year, Miller said.
Once the first phase is complete, “the school will have enough space for 300 students,” Miller said
As those 150 freshman and 150 sophomores matriculate, the STEM school will continue to accept ninth-graders and will have students in every high school grade level by the fall of 2014, according to district communications director Kathryn Reith. By 2014, there will be 600 full-time students attending the STEM school, Reith said. The new 66,000-square-foot school would accommodate up to 675 students, allowing another 150 part-time juniors and seniors from other high schools to enroll in elective lab classes at the STEM school, according to Reith.
The new STEM school, a modular prefabricated building, will feature 24 classrooms, four laboratories, two common areas and a presentation hall. There will be no gymnasium or athletic fields. Once the permits are issued, work will begin on site, while construction of sections of the school will be built off-site in Oregon and trucked up to Redmond, Miller said, adding that is the first modular prefabricated school in the state.
TEACHING STRUCTURE
While the construction has yet to begin, Cindy Duenas, the planning principal for the STEM school, along with her planning team, have been finalizing the academic structure of the school.
The STEM school’s curriculum and graduation requirements will be the same as those at other district high schools, with a focus on problem-based learning, digital literacy, inquiry, integration and research, Duenas said. Students and staff will use STEM education to pursue solutions to real-world challenges, such as clean energy, infrastructure and biomedical issues, Duenas said.
The first two years of study in the school are the “foundation years,” Duenas said. Teachers will use an integrated approach to core classes, weaving the STEM theme of physics, engineering and humanities into all areas of study, she added. Then in the students’ junior and senior years, they will select a STEM lab concentration, which will combine several classes in a specific focus, such as environmental engineering and design or computer science.
“We want the student to provide viable solutions to real-world problems,” Duenas said. “The students will work with experts in the community and science-based businesses in the community. We want to get our kids ready for that type of work in college and in their future professions.”
An informational meeting about the new STEM school was held last Friday and district officials handed out 450 applications, showing a “real enthusiasm” for the new school, Reith said. The STEM school application deadline is Friday and notification letters will be sent out by Feb. 15, according to the LWSD website.
