Valley School starts new year with renovated campus

Over the summer, The Valley School (318 30th Ave. E.) completed a $1.9 million project that included renovations of an existing building, demolition of the old administration building and construction of a new facility for third-, fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms.

Although the Madison Valley pre-K-5 school had considered adding on to its campus in the past, it was over the last two years that the project really came into fruition.

“I inherited the project,” explained Alan Braun, who been head of school since July 2014. “It’s been an idea that’s been considered for five or six years, but it was really just in the 2013-2014 school year, a year before I arrived, that it started to gain momentum.” 

The project’s price tag includes construction, design and property management costs, all covered through the school’s reserves; a loan from Seattle Bank; and a highly successful capital campaign, which raised $440,000 for the project. Securing funds through the three sources, fairly evenly, is an approach Braun termed as “intergenerational financing.”

“The past generations in The Valley School contributed to the school’s reserves,” Braun said. “The current generation contributed to the capital campaign, $440,000. And, the debt surface that will pay off the loan from Seattle Bank, in a sense, is the future generations of The Valley School contributing to this project.” 

The school planned the project so it would not interfere with the school year, working with an off-site custom construction company, Method Homes, who started building the new schoolhouse off-site in February 2015, and then delivered it to The Valley School in several units, three months later. Finishing touches were made and the new building was complete over the course of the summer.

“We were able to condense what would have taken a long, long, time — six or seven months, into just two and half months, so there was very little impact on school life during that time,” Braun said. 

Synergistic learning

Kathy Park, director of admissions, said the new building will house the upper elementary classrooms. Previously, the third-grade classroom was in the administration building, separated from all other grade levels. 

“One of the main goals for creating this building for grades 3, 4 and 5 was to create more opportunities for those teachers to collaborate and work together and to build alignment in our curriculum,” said curriculum coordinator Gillian Toledo. “They already work together really closely, but at this school, there’s only one class per grade, so it’s nice to have a bit of a cohort, lower-school cohort and upper-school cohort.”

Braun is also glad the school reached its goal. “As an educator, I know that when teachers are closer together, they are going to talk more, they are going to share ideas,” he said. There’s going to be greater collaboration; there’s going to be greater synergy of ideas in terms of curriculum, in terms of assessing kids. The benefits that accrue having teachers close by are significant.” 

Although the renovations and new building grant additional space, The Valley School will not grow beyond its current student body of 114. 

“We have pretty close to maximum capacity at this school, and we don’t want to push that, but also to grow would be moving away from some of our hallmark features,” Braun said. 

Playful learning

As an independent school, The Valley School is not subject to binding state curriculum and learning standards. Rather than testing students, teachers work with students on an individual basis to encourage growth. 

“We take a broad range of learners,” Park said. “We focus on not only academics but also the social emotional aspects of childhood, and we really recognize that children have different paths towards learning, so we really meet children right where they’re at, at that moment.” 

The Valley School also takes pride in principles and practices that place imagination, exploration and play as a high priority, noting its expansive outdoor playspace as the centerpiece of the school, which they took care to preserve throughout their building plans.

“We are very committed to maintaining open space and maintaining the importance of our playground,” Braun said. “This is a school for pre-K through fifth grade. Even though I would argue play should be an important part of education at all levels, it’s essential in early childhood education. Children learn in profound and effective ways through their play, so our commitment is to preserve playtime in the day but also to make our more academic times appropriately playful.” 

Open doors

Before the old building was town down in April, students had made stamps and used paint to decorate the exterior walls as a way of saying farewell. 

The students and their families saw the renovations and new building for the first time during The Valley School’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 8, the day before school started. 

Another open house took place on Oct. 8 to share the new campus with 30 fellow educators. 

The Valley School will have another open house, for only parents of prospective students, on Nov. 14, from 1 to 3 p.m. It will include tours of two classrooms. For more information, visit www.thevalleyschool.org.

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