Mountainside High School In Beaverton Is Taking Shape

BEAVERTON, OR — The buzzing sounds of saws and drills still echo through the halls of the Beaverton School District's newest facility, with roughly 470 workers on the 47-acre site at any given time. Nevertheless, district officials maintain that Mountainside High School will be ready to offer classes to incoming freshmen and sophomores beginning September 2017.

Dubbed Mountainside for its proximity to Cooper Mountain, the new facility located at 12500 S.W. 175th Ave. in Beaverton will be the district's sixth high school.

Boasting room enough for roughly 2,200 students, the 342,000-square-foot, $185 million facility will house 53 general classrooms, five special education classrooms, 11 science classrooms, and Career and Technical Education workshops covering fields like carpentry, flex engineering/robotics, and culinary arts. Outside, the grounds offer eight tennis courts and four turf fields, including a football field with stands, a softball field, baseball diamond, and soccer field for the forthcoming Mountainside Mavericks sports teams.

Click here for the 2017-2018 Academic Program Guide for Mountainside High School.

It was designed as a "closed loop," according to lead project designer Christopher Almeida, who noted the general spread of most schools in urban areas often include wings, whereas Mountainside is more of a circle built around a centralized, open air courtyard. District officials wanted the building to be representative of the community that's also being built around it, Almeida told Patch, adding that the circular shape of the building will not only provide a unique sense of closeness and community among students but it will also provide administrators and staff with increased security by minimizing entry and exit points and offering better sight lines and visibility through hallways and across common areas.

"The school, in general, is unbelievable," Mountainside Principal Todd Corsetti told Patch during a media tour of the facility on Monday, May 15. "It's like a dream come true."

Corsetti explained that he was a former teacher when the district opened Southridge High School in 1999, noting, "It's an amazing opportunity to (open a school) once in your career; it's incredible to do it twice."

A quick walk through the dusty, skeletal halls reveals why Corsetti might be particularly excited about the opening of this new facility.

Offering the latest and greatest in public education amenities, the school's classrooms come with USB-port outlets; Apple TV, Chromebooks, and Bluetooth technology will be incorporated into the students' learning experience; and roof-installed solar panels will provide the school with so much energy, district facilities Executive Administrator Dick Steinbrugge expects the building's excess stores will be put back into the city grid and surrounding community.

Speaking of which, Steinbrugge said the currently-empty grass fields to the North and East of Mountainside will be filled with nearly 4,500 different developments (single- and multi-family homes) over the next five years. The area to the West and South of the high school is already seeing signs of some development.

Also, the building would likely have been certified LEED Gold, Steinbrugge said, if the district had sought the official certification. But costs related to filing the LEED paperwork prevented the district from pursuing it, he said, noting the building was built to LEED specifications anyway. Seismic features, stormwater collection systems, and power conservancy all would have helped solidify the LEED honor, Steinbrugge said.

For more on Beaverton's newest high school, visit the district website. And to see where your child will attend school in the Beaverton School District, click here for the district's boundary map.

Photo Courtesy: Travis Loose, Patch