This April, our community will be voting on a $398 million bond to improve various facilities in the Lake Washington School District. This proposal will not raise taxes from their 2015 rates and includes the rebuild of Juanita High School. As a senior at Juanita, I can decisively say that a new school is beyond overdue.
The building itself is original to its opening in 1971. The interior structure, remodeled in 1984 to eliminate the Open Concept layout, is composed of awkward hallways, irregularly-shaped interior storage rooms, and multiple small offices to serve functions that should probably be centralized. None of the interior rooms have windows or natural light, which makes conducting class – or getting out safely – incredibly difficult when the power goes out.
We’re also beneath current Washington State requirements in terms of bathroom facilities per capita. According to the code for modern buildings, we should have approximately 32 stalls total for female students and 25 for male. When you consider only student bathrooms within the main building, it comes down to just 13 stalls for each gender, and that’s before you take into account the stalls with non-functioning doors. Staff bathrooms are the scarcest of all.
Most class sizes are over 30 students. Hallways are shoulder-to-shoulder during passing periods.
Classrooms are never empty because instructors rotate spaces in an attempt to cram as many students as possible into a limited schedule; frazzled teachers running back and forth between rooms to gather class materials only reduces instructional time. Most teachers are left without a classroom in which to work and prepare during their planning period. During emergency drills we usually manage to squeeze our way down packed hallways and out of the building without incident, but it’s hard to say what could happen if people panicked.
According to the LWSD, the new JHS would have the capacity for 1,800 students, or 504 more than it can reasonably support now. This growth is absolutely necessary for students’ safety and comfort.
Our science classrooms are a perfect example of what happens when overcrowding meets poor design. Safety organizations recommend a maximum class size of 24 students, especially in lab classrooms – there is a clear correlation between class size and an increased rate of serious accidents in the laboratory. Texas’ 2004 requirements for classroom size are close to the standard suggested measures: for combined classroom/labs with a class of 24, the room must be at least 1,400-square feet. The classroom/lab acknowledged to be the best science room at JHS regularly contains classes of 30 or more and is just 962-square feet. The emergency gas shutoff is on a pipe at the back of a floor-level cupboard beneath the teacher’s work station. In classrooms where separate lab facilities are unavailable, students’ regular desks are used to conduct experiments, sometimes with hazardous chemicals.
There are more problems that can be attributed to the building’s age and disrepair: mold, damaged or missing ceiling tiles, unreliable heating systems, bathroom stall doors that won’t latch or are missing completely, fire alarms too quiet to be heard in loud environments or from the portables, a potentially dangerous kiln facility in the pottery room, flooding in the photography dark room due to plumbing problems, and so on.
The administrators and staff at JHS have been coping admirably with a decrepit, overcrowded building, but they can only do so much to improve our learning environment. It is the community’s responsibility to ensure their students’ future by voting in favor of the “Bonds to reduce overcrowding and enhance student learning environments” this April.
Kirkland resident Olivia Williams is a senior at Juanita High School.
