Snoqualmie Middle School’s soon-to-be principal, Vernie Newell, said he’s excited to tackle the challenges of an anticipated population decrease at SMS.

After Newell takes over for Ruth Moen, who is moving on to head the new Twin Falls Middle School in June, the student body will drop from 570 to 350 as children transfer to Twin Falls, the district’s third middle school.

“The challenges are going to be, how do you restructure your academic programs and extracurricular programs to meet student needs? Also, how do you maintain the programs you have in place, because your staff may be lessened?” he said.

So, how?

“Very creatively,” Newell said.

Restructuring the school is a work in progress, and administration is looking at student results from a number of student assessments, including the WASL, to determine student needs and how to modify currently existing