Great Expectations School teacher Anne Mundell has been busy preparing her kindergarten classroom for the start of school. Mundell’s room is part of the new addition recently added on to GES. There are also first- and second-grade classrooms on the new wing with the kindergarten classroom. Staff photo/Brian Larsen
Monday, August 27, at about 4:30 p.m., Anne Mundell was busy arranging items in her kindergarten classroom. On her desk were small pebbles with letters of the alphabet written on them. With school almost ready to start, Anne had spelled the names of her incoming students by putting the alphabetized rocks together.
It was adorable. “I will use the rocks to help the kids learn to spell their names,” explained a cheerful Mundell.
Chandler Litterst’s first-grade room smelled brand new, fresh paint, new carpet, and Lyssa Ibarra was busy cleaning red and blue plastic containers while Chandler straightened things up.
When Great Expectations School opens for fall classes, many of the 107 enrolled children coming through the doors will be surprised at how much the facility has grown and changed.
Two classrooms, the first-grade “Fawns” and second-grade “Beavers,” were relocated to a new 1,800-square-foot modular building which was connected by hallway to the existing building, which houses the kindergarten classroom plus a room that will be used for Special Education, speech therapy, and other support specialists.
Performing much of the work to get ready were volunteers, who included members of the Great Expectations Foundation board and several parents. “In particular Jeff Kern and Jerry Starr committed an incredible amount of time and energy to make this happen,” said GES administrator Peter James. He also singled out parent volunteers Thom and Jelena McAleer, owners of Cascade Lodge.
“They came in and put in baseboards and painted classrooms. When you talk about people who are too busy to come and help, considering all the work they have going on at the lodge, you are talking about them. But despite their busy schedule, they found the time and graciously did a lot of work.”
The scramble to get ready before fall was somewhat unexpected. A distracted driver struck and damaged one of the modular units, setting the project back. “We wanted to start mid-June and finish at the end of July,” James said, “But instead we started almost four weeks later and, of course, found that construction workers who were available in June weren’t available in August.”
Oh well. Lots of volunteer hours, lots of elbow grease, early mornings, late nights, weekends, and the work magically got done. Despite some delays in construction, the new space at Great Expectations School is all but finished and ready to go.
In addition to the 1,800 square feet of new space, James said another 1,500 square feet was remodeled for offices, a science room, and administrative space, plus rooms for outside service workers like physical therapists, mental health providers, occupational therapists, etc. who come when needed, “These are important partners and we need to give them appropriate work space.”
James noted that funding for the addition was another challenge. “We didn’t receive any grants and legally can’t take out a loan or get a mortgage on the building because of the ways the laws are written that govern charter schools,” he said. “We had to make it happen with the dollars raised by the efforts of the GES and foundation boards and staff, along with individual donations.”
Twenty-seven people make up the staff at GES. One of them, Lesa Hofer, the very capable office administrator said, “Peter laid out all the new spaces, the furniture, desks, and everything that was going into the new rooms to make sure it all fit. Everything works perfectly. It’s like magic. I wonder if anyone knows he did that?”
“It’s okay if they don’t know,” James said.
As for magic, that will come the first day of school when the doors open and a whole new version of GES appears before surprised children’s eyes.
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