Junior high transitioning to middle school

By NANCY KIMBALL

KJHS students will notice big changes

The Daily Inter Lake

Kalispell Junior High students, come prepared for some nice surprises on Wednesday.

When classes begin Aug. 30, students and staff will enter a school that is entirely different in some ways and very familiar in others.

The new sixth-grade classroom wing to the northeast is the biggest change - both because of its 25,000 square feet with 13 new classrooms, and because of its design that will lead into the middle-school structure.

Running a close race in the change category is the completely redesigned library, with its bank of windows giving a view into the central courtyard, a pair of adjacent computer labs and space for triple the number of computers for students to use in the library.

The school's new practice gym on the west was finished in March, but soon will be paired with the existing gym - when the library and administrative offices are relocated out of their temporary gym quarters.

But the most visible change for the public will be the front-of-the-house redesign and new cafetorium with its soaring roof and welcoming glass entry wall to the south.

Voters approved $10.9 million in construction bonds in November 2004 to expand and remodel the junior high into a middle school. It opens in fall 2007.

But in the midst of construction bidding, Hurricane Katrina and the Flathead's own building boom conspired to drive up prices on many bids. Some came in lower than expected.

To keep within budget, several items were axed permanently. Others will be added back in later if bond money is available.

Project architect Don Counsell of Architects Northwest said just under $9.32 million in construction costs have been committed so far.

Final site work will go out for bid this winter. It will include a new access road behind the school connecting the school's existing driveway off Parkway Drive on the east, with Wedgewood Lane on the north.

HERE'S A summary of what to expect this fall, and what's on the horizon a year from now:

. The 20,200-square-foot cafetorium is under construction, with Swank Enterprises project manager Mark Harwood expecting to have the band and choir/orchestra rehearsal rooms dried in within a couple weeks, and a roof over everything by the end of October.

It's an aggressive plan, he admitted, but will help keep the project on schedule for what he expects to be a May 2007 completion.

A loading dock on the west will feed into the kitchen, off the current bus loop. That loop will be reshaped a bit, but still will serve buses in the morning as well as parents dropping off and picking up students. Until that is opened after construction, however, parents should continue to drop off in the parking lot below the gyms.

Three wide tiers step down to the stage front, beneath a maple-look metal ceiling. Tables and chairs can be moved out for special presentations. A folding wall at the front of the stage was cut from the budget.

Between the cafetorium and music rooms will be a wide hallway/student commons, spilling from the cafetorium up two broad staircases to the principal's office suite. A handicap-accessible elevator and restrooms are at the east end of the commons hall.

Large doorways and windows with coiling wood doors will link the cafetorium to the commons. Lockers for the commons were cut from the budget; the old ones in the first-floor hall will remain until new ones can go into the commons.

Outside walls will be stucco above and brick below. The southeast-facing wall will be topped by a bank of translucent windows.

. Administrative offices will be flipped to face southwest instead of northeast.

The front counter will look out over the commons, and a nurse's station will be the hub of the new administration and remodeled guidance offices and special-education room.

. A door at the north end of the library's bank outside windows opens into the courtyard. Doors and windows open into the two 1,200-square-foot computer labs and an outside exit door off the corridor.

Opposite the computer labs, the audio-visual media area is sectioned into its own room now. Student-used computers in the library will triple from 10 to 30, and there will be two teaching areas.

. The sixth-grade wing features three classroom pods.

Each has four 840-square-foot classrooms facing into a 960-square-foot porch for group projects and fronted by about 450 square feet of locker space for students in those classrooms. Those lockers will be bought with district money outside the construction bonds.

Each pod has its own exit door leading onto a landscaped lawn.

A special education room is located between the two pods to the north, across from student restrooms. On that corridor, another door opens into the courtyard.

No money is in the budget for courtyard landscaping. Junior High Principal Barry Grace said teachers, students and parents may drive efforts to enhance the space marked now by two mature trees.

. The 9,000-square-foot practice gym finally will be put to its intended use sometime this fall. The school district must formally accept and move into the remodeled library, in order to get the stacks out of the gym. And the temporary administrative offices will be moved out of the gym, possibly to their permanent quarters if construction allows.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com