Not long after the February 2015 SVSD school bond passed, which provided $188 million to completely rebuild Mount Si High School, a High School Design Team was assembled, charged with working alongside NAC architects and construction experts to determine the high school’s new design concept – or in laymen’s terms, what the building will look like and where it will sit on the property.
That team is made up of about 40 members, including teachers, students, PTSA presidents (or their designees) representing parents from each SVSD school, high school administrators and secretaries and district assistant superintendents.
Meeting every two weeks since March, the team did visioning workshops and then moved onto the vital conceptual design work, taking into account education specifications and public feedback gathered through an online ‘ThoughtExchange’ survey.
At last week’s school board meeting, Assistant Superintendent Ryan Stokes provided an update on the Design Team’s work, complimenting NAC Architects for “really listening” to the team and being responsive to their pros and cons as each new conceptual idea was drawn up and presented.
Stokes said the process is on track and the Design Team hopes to have a preferred concept ready to recommend to the school board at its June 25th meeting.
So what is that concept for the future of Mount Si High School? Well, it hasn’t been determined yet, but they’re getting close. Stokes said high school teachers and administrators have laid out education specifications for programming delivery and high level ThoughExchange results (i.e. public input) have all been incorporated into the process.
Stokes commented that “what the [new] building might look like” is right in line with the public input gathered and he thinks the board will be very excited by the Design Team’s work, commenting that they’ve really been able to ‘push the box’ regarding what can be done on the Mount Si HS site.
According to a NAC Architect Design Process report, “The intent is to study all possible options to ensure that we are building the best high school for the next 100 years and looking at creative options to save money/shorten construction/and add value to the overall project.”
Design concepts considered to date include ones that center small learning communities around one large common space or around multiple smaller common areas – and even one option that explores building on the existing baseball and softball fields in just one single phase, which reduces construction time and student disruption.
With a conceptual design approved by the school at the end of the June, NAC architects could then get going on the Schematic Design process over the summer – which includes all the detailed work of figuring out what classroom goes where, etc.
In a Nutshell: The Design Team is hopeful to have one, preferred high school design concept by the end of June. With board approval, architects would then start work on the detailed, schematic designs during the summer. This means a final design for the future Mount Si High School could be brought to the community and school board in late summer/early fall.
To learn more about the Mount Si High School Rebuild Design Team work, visit the district’s new webpage dedicated to the project HERE.
[If the Design Team takes a two-phase conceptual design route, it was estimated that phase 1 of the Mount Si Rebuild would be completed by fall 2019 (original post had typo that stated 2017, but estimate is 2019) and the second phase by 2022.]
Comments
This design committee is the stupidist thing of which I have ever heard. You are wasting precious bond resources to pay people who all have different vested interests in the design. Did you include the head coaches on the committee, since some of the proposals include building on the baseball and softball fields? This is not rocket science, you need to spend most of the money building, and not consulting everyone who has an opinion. Hire an architect who specializes in school design, and build what he draws.
The impression I get is the design committee is made up of unpaid volunteers who want a say in the future of the school. Good for them for stepping up to a very daunting task. Especially in the face of the public, who demands so much of how their money is spent.
I agree, Candace. I’m really appreciative of the care and planning going into this process. Building a school that can work for the next 100 years is a HUGE project and I’m confident that the work of the committee will help solidify the best option for our kids. I’m proud of our community. 🙂
I think Rick’s misunderstanding comes from the poorly written and confusing post. I’m surprised it was made public! Comments are heavily censored on this site.
I regress, I too hope all the school district staff are volunteers and are not being paid for their biased opinions. I also question the participating students, my mshs students were never asked if they would be interested in participating in this committee.
Sorry if you felt the piece was confusing. Comments, though, are not “heavily censored” on this site. Most comments generated are left on Facebook and very few don’t meet the sites comment policy.