Stove Prairie digs new digs

By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News

Framers were working at warp speed in July, as they rushed to finish the addition to Stove Prairie School in time for the new school year.

The 3,000-square-foot addition will house one new classroom, a media center with a beautiful view of the Stove Prairie Valley, new restrooms and much-needed work space, including a small office for mountain schools principal Bob Kulovany.

There's even a lift, a simple sort of elevator that will help handicapped students move from the classroom level to the gym. All classrooms except the kindergarten room will now be handicapped-accessible, and Kulovany said classrooms could be switched around to accommodate a handicapped student.

Total cost of the Stove Prairie project is $730,000, with $575,000 coming from the bond issue passed by voters in 2000. The total cost includes a water storage project undertaken recently and several maintenance projects.

One doesn't have to look far to see the need for more space at Stove Prairie. In the past, one 10x10-foot space served an interesting variety of functions: headquarters for office manager Karen England, a workroom for teachers, nurse's clinic, teachers' lounge (a chair) and the principal's office. Kulovany jokes that his office was "a chair that they let me use once in a while." When he needed a private conference with a parent, they had to take a stroll outside.

Now, there will be a separate nurse's room, a teacher work area and a reception area for parents and other visitors.

Overcrowding was also evident in the school's modular building. In that structure, the preschool bumped elbows with the media center, computer lab, resource teacher, speech and language specialist and any teacher who wanted to work with an individual student. "All these things were going on at the same time," Kulovany said, adding with understatement that things got a bit hectic in the building.

With the new space, the preschool will reign alone in the modular building, and the building will be attached to the rest of the school.

The Stove Prairie addition ties existing school buildings together into one cohesive whole. A person entering the school on the south side will have a clear sight line to large windows on the north, offering views of the picturesque valley and its large Ponderosa pines. One of the important design considerations, Kulovany said, was to preserve that view and the school's connection with its natural surroundings.

Kulovany said he is most excited about the instructional benefits that the new addition will bring. "This will allow us a lot of break-out space," he said, "where small group and individual instruction can take place."

Stove Prairie is "a pretty unique school," Kulovany noted, with active parent support and a nice mix of experience and youthful enthusiasm among the staff. Now, with more instructional space, he is confident that the quality of instruction will be even better.

Job superintendent Howard Essen said the biggest challenges of the Stove Prairie project have been access, since heavy equipment can't drive around the building, and the complicated design linking different buildings and varied rooflines together. The Stove Prairie addition was designed by RB+B Architects, and W.M. Brown Construction Corp. is the general contractor. Ed Holder is managing the project for the school district.

"I'm pleased that the district came through with their promise," Kulovany said, referring to plans announced prior to passage of the bond issue. It wasn't always a sure thing, he added, that Stove Prairie would get its needed improvements.

This fall, Stove Prairie will welcome 42 elementary students when school starts on Aug. 24, plus 10 preschool youngsters. The children will likely be pleased with the school's new look and new space, even if it's not completely finished when the school bell rings. They also don't have to worry about one really important thing: the school's famous sledding hill is still intact.