A schematic design shows what the outside of the STEM wing at W.F. West High School will look like. The wing is expected to be constructed by December.
The Chehalis School District is steadily moving forward to create a new STEM wing at W.F. West High School with construction to begin by early March.
Tommy Elder, assistant principal at W.F. West High School, said bids for the project have already been submitted. He said the school board will likely award a contract at its next meeting.
The STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — wing is funded by a $5.5 million state grant. Some main features of the 16,000 square-foot building include six labs, two classrooms, a cell culture lab and a scanning electron microscope lab.
Elder said there will also be a collective learning space that connects to an interactive learning room with seven flat screen televisions that students can connect to via their chromebooks. That will allow students to work together on larger projects, he said.
The building is designed to accommodate the high school’s future growth, and many of the classrooms currently serving STEM classes will be repurposed for other functions.
The school currently has teachers instructing in the library and in large storage spaces that were converted into classrooms, according to Elder. The hope is to get the teachers into more functional spaces and to give them some flexibility for the different classes they teach.
“This allows us to not only have the classes we vacated to be opened up for growth, new staff, or flexible spaces … but the classrooms (in the STEM wing) are extremely large and are able to handle the growth in more students and more staff,” Elder said.
Each lab will be approximately 1,400 square-feet, while the classrooms are just over 1,000 square-feet. Both the labs and the classrooms are designed as “flexible spaces,” allowing the teachers to design their learning environment with moveable tables, and chairs, among other features.
“Our teachers have worked so hard to not only stay current, but to kind of stay in front of the new science and STEM trends that have been coming with genetics and robotics,” Elder said, also mentioning the high school’s state of the art scanning electron microscope. “We are able to now modernize the space for them and for all the kids to have just a very unique and dynamic learning environment.”
The goal is to have the STEM wing constructed by the end of the year, allowing teachers to move in over Christmas break, Elder said.
“The timeframe is short, and that’s why again we are hoping we can get approved and get started by the end of the month,” he said. “That’s a big key to that.”
During the construction phase, there will be several impacts to the adjoining roadway and sidewalk. Elder said the construction area will butt up against the sidewalk on 16th Street, closing part of that sidewalk. The street will also have to be turned into a one-lane at various points in the construction phase, Elder said. To make sure students are not walking on half a sidewalk or on the street, the school will alter some of its after school bus pick up times. There will also be reduced parking spaces as well as construction noise.
“It’s an inconvenience and we have to deal with it, but we are all going to be excited when it’s done,” Elder said.
He thanked Superintendent Ed Rothlin, Assistant Superintendent Mary Lou Bissett, and the science teachers for their exceptional work on planning, and also thanked James Hill with KMB Architects.
“They’ve been phenomenal working with us and really getting our ideas into the design,” Elder said. “It’s been a fantastic experience and I think everyone is really excited to see it go up and to move in in such a short time frame.”
