October 14, 2015

Mukilteo to build kindergarten-only school

Image from DLR Group [enlarge]

More kids are attending school in Mukilteo and that has district administrators looking for the best way to handle the influx.

The solution? Build a kindergarten-only school for as many as 600 tykes that are 5 and 6 years old.

The Mukilteo School District in February plans to seek a general contractor to build its Fairmount Kindergarten Center next to Fairmount Elementary at 11401 Beverly Park Road in Everett. Construction costs are estimated at $24.9 million.

Debra Fulton, executive director of district support services, said Mukilteo schools are unique in that most of them are within a mile or two of Paine Field. That should make it easier to feed kindergarteners into the new school from five or six of the district's 11 elementary schools that roughly ring the airport.

Fulton said the new school will prepare high-poverty students to enter the first grade. It also will fill a state mandate for all-day kindergarten classes.

The Seattle office of DLR Group designed the 65,000-square-foot building with input from a committee of teachers, parents and school administrators.

Fulton said the building will not have a gym, cafeteria or full-fledged library. She said teachers wanted to reduce transitions for the kids, such as lining them up to go to the gym or cafeteria, which can be time-consuming and challenging.

The school will have four six-classroom pods in two wings. Each pod will have its own dining area and gathering places, and each wing will have its own play area. There also will be shared areas outside the classrooms where breakout groups can meet and students can work on messy projects.

Making the school appear smaller by breaking it up into pods is expected to be less stressful and intimidating to the first-time students. And, since kindergarteners spend a lot of time on the floor, designers decided to use radiant floor heating to make the kids more comfortable.

Construction is expected to begin in April, and the school should open in September 2017.

Funding for the school comes from a $119.15 million bond measure approved by voters in February 2014.

Fairmount Elementary will continue to operate after the kindergarten center opens.