More than two years in the making, a sixth elementary school in the Snoqualmie Valley School District got a substantial start Monday, May 16, when school district officials broke ground on the new building.

The new school, designed from Cascade View Elementary School plans, will be 71,000 square feet, with 31 classrooms and a student capacity of 650. It will also be the first new school building that voters in the district have approved since 2003’s $53 million bond for Twin Falls Middle School.

Since then, the district has seen multiple bonds fail. The current school board debated hotly for many months on whether to pursue the $244 million bond that voters did approve in February.

The bond, proposing to build the sixth elementary school, make repairs to every school building in the district and completely renovate Mount Si High School over eight years, passed with 62 percent approval.

Crowding at the elementary and middle school levels were key arguments in the bond supporters’ campaign, along with the need for a high school that could provide a “21st-century education,” as several school board members stated.

Currently, the district is averaging about 2,930 students in grades K-5, 1,500 in grades 6-8, and 1,715 at the high school level. For 2015-16, the enrollment projections are 2,902 K-5, 1,506 6-8, and 1,798 9-12. Roughly 35 percent of the district students are housed in portable classrooms.

“School houses are tangible examples of a community’s investment in its children,” Superintendent Joel Aune said at the ground breaking.

“These buildings are testaments to the value a community places on the education of its youth.”

Design work is also beginning on the high school. Since the project is expected to be done in phases, the district plans to relocate the freshmen students, now in their own building, back into the main high school building.

When the freshman return to the main campus, the district will restore the freshman campus building to use as a middle school, bringing the district to three middle schools again.

Work on the sixth elementary school is scheduled to start in the next few weeks. The building is expected to open in time for the 2016-17 school year.

Assistant Superintendent Ryan Stokes discusses the initial designs for the district’s sixth elementary school on Monday.