Construction keeps students in mind

WASILLA — Designing a facility like Mat-Su Day School can present an interesting set of challenges.

Mat-Su Day School is for students with emotional and behavioral challenges. So security is more of an issue than in most Mat-Su Borough School District facilities.

On a Feb. 25 tour of the facility now under construction along Tait Road, Mat-Su Borough School Board Member Susan Pougher asked about those security measures.

Chris Whittington-Evans with Wolfe Architecture, the firm that designed the school, said that staff will use swipe cards to get around, that there are multiple spots from which they can set off a lockdown, that there are 16 cameras and various glass-break alarms and motion sensors.

“Each teacher has a panic button,” he said during a recent tour of the facility for school district and borough government officials.

Funding for the $10-million building project was included in a raft of school bonds borough voters approved in 2011. That five-year bond package included a number of schools including, the new Valley Pathways building, and the Joe Redington Sr. Jr./Sr. High School in Knik. The Day School houses 50 to 70 students and, like Pathways, has been housed until now mostly in portable facilities.

But the purpose of the school can go into design choices in less obvious ways. For instance, Evans pointed out how thick the walls in between classrooms are. The building has lots of sound insulation, so a disturbance in one classroom won’t disrupt learning in a neighboring classroom.

Lighting also will be important here. The school will have a lot of natural light but also needs the ability to control the level of lighting in the room.

“With kids who have motional challenges lighting is really key,” Whittington-Evans said.

He said that a lot of panes of glass were chosen for their ability to diffuse light. Some reduce the light that travels through them by 60 percent.

Another design feature — lots of storage in each room. The Day School serves all level of students, from elementary through high school. But it’s a school with a relatively small enrollment, which means that teachers end up teaching a whole lot of different subjects.

“Every room has a location for each teacher to keep their curriculum,” Whittington-Evans said.

Each room also has a little nook in one corner big enough for one study carrel. The idea is to have a place where students can break off from the group if they need a minute to calm down. They’re isolated there, but not fully separated from the group.

But it’s not all panic buttons and isolation carrels.

“The design team wanted a space where kids who have exemplary behavior or are displaying life skills are rewarded for that,” Whittington-Evans said, when the tour reached the “achievement classroom.”

The room will be decked out with a green screen stage. Green screens are generally used in conjunction with video and photo editing software that replaces the green with an exotic backdrop or video, giving the appearance that the actor in front of the screen is somewhere else.

The room will also have a bunch of colored lights that the kids can turn on and off, changing the way the room looks from outside.

“It’s still a classroom,” Whittington-Evans said. “It’s still meant to be used as a learning space.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.