First Class: Issaquah’s new high school raises the bar | Photos

Published 1:07 pm Thursday, August 25, 2011

In the new music room at Issaquah High School, choral teacher Barbara Irish plucks away on a baby grand a few weeks before classes start.

“There is just a little bit of ring to the room, which is perfect for choral,” she says, before looking up at the waffle-shaped sound panels that line the walls.

The new high school building, which will open fully to students for the first time this year, raises the bar of what some might consider an ideal school.

Even before students get a chance to fill their lockers, adorn trophy cases and scuff the floors with new sneakers, Principal Paula Phelps hopes to set a tone of gratefulness and not entitlement.

“This is like a gift to us, and we want to be really, really good stewards of this,” she said. “Our community made it possible.”

The $94.8 million school, like Skyline, was paid for with a local facilities levy.

Thanks to a rocky economy, the building bid came about $6 million under initial estimates, said Steve Crawford, director of capital projects.

The school was built for 1,850 students, but enrollment has already exceeded that this year with about 1,860 students.

The most functional half of the school opened up last year – general classrooms, science labs, the gym and a cafeteria. The second phase, however, is the awe factor.

The new wing provides spaces for elective classes, including Irish’s new music room, a 600-person theater, and a specially designed shop class.

“I don’t think we can conceptualize all of the ways it will be useful,” Phelps said.

The theater is the heart of the arts wing, with hallways lining either side. The orchestra pit fills in beneath the stage with enough space for a full ensemble.

“It’s spectacular for sound,” she said.

The theater is also a major improvement for the school’s award-winning music program, which once performed in a cafeteria.

They used to string wires across the ceiling using coat hangers, she said laughing.

“We were called ‘District 9’ last year,” she said about the transitional space, referring to the 2009 film about an extraterrestrial race forced to live in slum-like conditions on Earth.

The space coupled with a sizable green room has outside groups clamoring to use the new space, Phelps said.

For smaller performances and dance classes, the district built a black box theater, complete with a lighting catwalk.

The focus isn’t just on performing arts. The ceramics classroom comes with its own kiln room.

The wood shop class has a separate lecture room with windows that look out onto the space with saws.

It’s a safer design, because it allows teachers to view students working from an office. It also pulls them away from the distracting machinery for instruction.

Like the first phase, natural light floods most of the classrooms.

After 30 years of teaching at nine different schools, Irish has a window in her music room for the first time, she said.

The former schoolhouse was built with an open, California-style design with outdoor passageways.

The idea was to encourage students to enjoy the mountains and forests it’s nestled against.

However, most of the windows faced another classroom, rain dampened the outdoor walkways, and the easy access to individual rooms came with a safety concern, Phelps said.

The new building was designed to also have a strong link to the outdoors, but through tall windows that look up into the surrounding hills.

The school is also easier on the environment, with an efficient heating system, rain gardens and impervious surfaces reduced by over an acre, Crawford said.

The stadium won’t be replaced. It’s too costly, but it did get a new track and turf field, Phelps said.

There is also more parking, and the district paid to repave parts of Second Avenue and add a stop light.

While the building is open for use, final details, such as landscaping, won’t be finished until winter.

The three years of construction didn’t come without hardships, but the school united through the pain, Phelps said.

“You just laughed through the difficulty together,” she said. “I truly believe who we are isn’t the facility. It’s the culture we carry on.”

Teacher Barbara Irish tests the sound in one of the new music rooms at Issaquah High School.

Principal Paula Phelps stands outside the new wing of Issaquah High School, which is slated to open this fall.

Issaquah High School’s courtyard was completed last year using pervious pavement to stop water runoff.