The addition of four classrooms using innovative building material at Greywolf Elementary School in Carlsborg is a welcome sight, Sequim School District officials say.

But Greywolf principal Donna Hudson noted last week, “This doesn’t give us extra room — it gives us just the right amount of room.”

Community members and school staffers celebrated on June 28 the official opening of a four-classroom structure on the Greywolf campus made of cross-laminated timber (CLT), one of five school districts across the state taking part in a statewide pilot project.

Engineered by crisscrossing and fusing layers of wood, the material is a promising new product, project officials say, because of its relative strength and stability. The timber can be made from smaller-diameter trees such as those harvested as part of forest-thinning and restoration projects.

The CLT panels used at Greywolf were created from Olympic Peninsula timber and manufactured in Oregon.

Greywolf’s building project began March 25 and was completed — minus some finishing touches and additions of classroom furniture — on June 23, Hudson said.

“These kind of community efforts make a difference,” Sequim schools superintendent Gary Neal said.

“This was a great opportunity for us,” he said. “We’re really limping along in terms of our elementary schools. (That) forces us to have 21st-century solutions. Our 20th-century solutions don’t work out very well.”

As of June 2017, Greywolf housed 548 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Helen Haller Elementary classrooms held 618 students.

Sequim continues to use 13 classrooms in seven portables at Helen Haller and eight classrooms in four portable classrooms at Sequim High School. Portables are intended to be temporary solutions to overcrowding, school officials said.

Neal gave kudos to Rep. Steve Tharinger (D-Sequim) for his efforts in getting the CLT pilot project funded. As capital budgets chairman, Tharinger advocated to keep the project in the previous state budget because of the advantages of cross-laminated timber along with an opportunity to create more jobs.

Tharinger was unable to attend the June 28 ribbon cutting. He and U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer hailed the CLT project in a community gathering at Greywolf Elementary in late April.

Building gains praise from Sequim teachers

Hudson said she had several teachers without classrooms using carts to carry their supplies from room to room.

Bethanie Robbins, Greywolf’s kindergarten specialist who teaches everything from computers and physical education to art, science and writing, will have a classroom of her own come next fall thanks to the classroom additions.

“I (was using) a wagon, so anything would be fabulous,” she said last week.

Starting last July, Robbins — a 13-year Greywolf veteran who used to teach kindergarten full time — worked with designers to advise what teachers would like to see in the new CLT classrooms.

“They asked, ‘What’s your dream?’ and to think outside the box about what would be great (for teachers),” Robbins said.

While budget limitations did quell some of the group ideas, Robbins said what designers developed should be a big boost for the four kindergarten teachers in that space.

“These rooms utilize everything as a learning opportunity,” she said, noting that some of the sliding doors can be used as white boards — a kind of modern chalkboard used for class lessons.

“It’s beautiful but it’s also very functional.”

Carla Drescher and Kelli Mishko, two of the four kindergarten teachers who will be in the CLT building this fall, said they were impressed with the size and efficiencies of the CLT classrooms.

“It’s more spacious than we imagined,” Drescher said.

Unlike the classrooms in Greywolf’s main building that are connected by hallways, the CLT building features a kind of open floor plan and transparent doorways that give the feeling of common space between rooms.

“I’m looking forward to kids being able to move between all four classrooms,” Mishko said. “It’s more like a cooperative learning (environment).”

“It’s a new concept,” Drescher said. This is more communal. We’re not closed off.”

CLT technology a state focus

Sequim’s Greywolf Elementary joins four other schools with CLT building projects. Others include:

• Jefferson Elementary, Mount Vernon School District

• Maple Elementary, Seattle School District

• Valley View Elementary, Toppenish School District

• Adams Elementary, Wapato School District

The state’s 2016 supplemental capital budget included $5.5 million in the state building construction account for a CLT pilot project, which in addition to constructing classrooms at five schools around the state will measure how well how using the engineered wood product creates efficiencies in the construction process and achieves other environmental and economic benefits.

Funding stems from Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2380, but like other districts, Sequim must provide the site to build along with classroom furnishings.

The design-build team was led by Walsh Construction Co., with Mahlum Architects.

“Cross-laminated timber is a win across the board,” Hilary Franz, Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands, said.

“When produced from responsibly-harvested trees, CLT creates jobs in rural economies, supports healthy forests, gives architects and builders a beautiful new building material and can provide our kids with inspiring new spaces for learning.”

“Our mission at the Department of Natural Resources is to be a steward of our state’s lands, strengthen our rural economies and support vital community infrastructure like schools. CLT is a product that falls perfectly in line with those values and we at DNR couldn’t be more hopeful about CLT’s potential.”

Debra Delzell, project manager of Washington State’s Department of Enterprise Services, noted that cross-laminated timber has applications beyond school classrooms.

“It is well suited for mid-rise office buildings, apartment construction and student housing,” Delzell said. “We are seeing that prefabricated panels are helpful in meeting short construction schedules.”

Read more about the cross-laminated timber project at des.wa.gov/about/projects-initiatives/cross-laminated-timber-pilot-project.

Greywolf Elementary School principal Donna Hudson helps Bianca Lopez and Benjamin Smith with the ribbon cutting at Greywolf Elementary School’s new kindergarten classroom building on June 28. Sequim Gazette photos by Michael Dashiell

Sequim teacher Eric Danielson and Jodi Minker, administrative assistant with the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce, get a glimpse of the new classroom building at Greywolf Elementary School. Sequim Gazette photo by Michael Dashiell

Sequim schools superintendent Gary Neal talks with Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias after a tour of Greywolf’s new cross-laminated timber building on June 28. Sequim Gazette photo by Michael Dashiell

Sequim schools superintendent Gary Neal talks with Clallam County Commissioner Mark Ozias after a tour of Greywolf’s new cross-laminated timber building on June 28. Sequim Gazette photo by Michael Dashiell