It couldn't have happened to a better part of town, to get a colorful, light-filled new school with computer whiteboard hook-ups in all the classrooms and an indoor track.
The new Clark Middle School, a three-story blue and brown building, opened Friday on Bragaw Street in Mountain View.
You walk into a welcoming commons area, brightened by natural light pouring in from high windows all around.
On one side of the lobby, you can stroll onto the track, an oval circling the gym below. There's a separate multipurpose room with pull-down seating along the walls. If you end up in a lively red room a little farther along, you're in the band room. If it's orange, that's orchestra.
Every classroom has an interactive whiteboard up front that makes it easy for teachers to use computers to help convey the lessons.
Each grade is on a separate level -- sixth on the ground floor, seventh on the second (main) floor and eighth-graders at the top of the heap, on level three, with the best Chugach Mountain views. An incoming sixth-grader checking out the school on Friday said the separate levels are one of her favorite parts.
The classrooms are clustered together in pods to match the middle school style that has taken hold the last few years. They're designed for teams of math, language arts, science and social studies teachers to work together with the same group of students.
In an age when smaller is considered better, the separate floors for each grade and the cluster set-up create "a school within a school within a school," says Patricia Kuilboer, special education department chair for Clark. She thinks that's good for kids.
But it's a flexible building, says superintendent Carol Comeau. Flexible and sturdy -- it'll be standing still in another 50 years, she predicts. It should. It cost about $65 million in bonds approved by voters, with state assistance promised to repay the debt.
The original school on the Clark site was solid too -- built in 1959, it lasted until a couple of years ago, when it was demolished. It started out with a coal-burning furnace, said one of the speakers at the ribbon-cutting. By the end of the 20th century, the school was well out of date. Though it survived the 1964 earthquake, bringing it up to modern seismic standards was prohibitively expensive. Other, more affluent parts of town had already gotten modern middle schools; this time it was Mountain View's turn.
The old Clark was part of a neighborhood that had been crumbling along with the school in recent years. Mountain View was filled with shabby four-plexes and tri-plexes.
But the neighborhood is remaking itself with the help of public investment, private enterprises and nonprofits. Builders have torn down many of the aging, worn-out structures. Single-family houses with porches are the coming thing. With refurbished office buildings, better landscaping along the road and an arts center in the works, it's a place working hard to modernize.
The new school will help Mountain View get there.
BOTTOM LINE: Congrats to Mountain View and the School District -- the new Clark is a big step up.