UPDATE: The Viking Views obtained mock-ups of the vision of what campus will look like next year.

Principal Jonathan Parker said, “We’re well into the construction now and it is very exciting that this time next year [there’s] going to be an actual building and there’ll be students and teachers working in it!

We watched them move dirt for a very long time.

We always temper expectations that the architects aspirations and what they put into their dream are often tempered by actual school budgets.

So we were hesitant to share the pictures too early. Just because our experience with building J was such that the design encountered inflation, so what you budgeted for in 2020, and what’s completed by the end of 2021, were two very different things.

And there’s another chapter after that.

We’re going to have new tennis courts, beach volleyball courts, improved baseball and softball fields.”

The large construction dirt lot in the middle of campus is the beginning of a new three story building, to be named “K Building.”

Assistant Principal Tim Matteson, who is overseeing the construction, said that the first floor of K is slated to be moved in during September of 2023 with the other two floors ready for move in in the months that follow.

“In one year from now, we hope to be moving in the first floor, so we’ll have to occupy in phases. September it’ll be first floor, then some more over fall break, and then the remainder before winter break next year,” Matteson said.

The building is part of the school’s plan to house students more comfortably.

Since the school is unable to expand outwards, the only option is to build up.

Along with housing students more comfortably, the new classrooms will help alleviate pressure on teachers.

“(It) will help some teachers who are working six-fifths to go back on to five-fifths, so some of our teachers will be less strained, less work-load on them.”

Six-fifths means some teachers are covering positions that currently have no viable candidates or are having difficulty in scheduling.

The introduction of K, and with it new classrooms, there will be more room for new or other teachers to take those classes off of the teachers working six-fifths.

On top of the new building, the athletic fields are all part of the complete project.

Matteson said, “All of the athletic fields are part of the project. If we look at the project in its entirety, there is a picture of what it looks like at the end. And in it the athletic fields are done, K is done, and eventually, (the 500 building) will be remodeled as part of the administration to alieve congestion in the front office. That’s the final phase.”