The Bear Creek School Begins Construction on 50,000 Sq. Ft. Building

REDMOND, Wash. - Oct. 8, 2014 - PRLog -- The rumble of bulldozers can be heard across The Bear Creek School campus each day. It is a welcome sound. After 25 years of steady growth, including 14 years at the campus on Union Hill in Redmond, The Bear Creek School is expanding.

In June, Bear Creek began construction of a new 50,000 square foot building on adjacent property south of the existing Redmond Campus on 208th Avenue NE. The facility will house the Upper School (grades 9-12) and a Fine & Performing Arts Center.  Construction is on pace to finish next summer, with students occupying the building in August 2015.

The new Upper School will have a collegiate environment, with separate floors for the humanities and for math and science. The physical layout will accommodate increased enrollment and will enable additional program and curriculum development and integration. The centerpiece of the new building is a central atrium that will offer flexible areas for student leadership development, learning micro-communities, study sessions, and student-faculty interaction beyond the classroom walls. This atrium will also serve as the cafeteria midday and theater reception area in the evening.

The Fine & Performing Arts Center will have an auditorium-style theater with 350 seats, a fly loft, and high-quality sound and lighting systems. In addition to the theater, the Performing Arts Center will include specially designed rooms for instruction in visual arts, music, and drama, as well as dressing rooms and storage areas. The theater will be available for community rental when not in use by the school.

The new building will impact students in every division, not just the Upper School. Over the next year as the building goes up, Bear Creek will re-imagine its existing facilities to provide distinct, age-appropriate learning environments with additional space and flexibility for academic, programmatic, and psychosocial student engagement and growth. With the new building, Bear Creek will gradually increase its graduating class size to 72 students, while individual classrooms or sections will remain at 16-18 students.

For more information about the new building or the school, visit www.tbcs.org/newbuilding.

About The Bear Creek School

Founded in 1988, in Redmond, Washington, The Bear Creek School is an independent classical Christian school that believes only when faith, mind, and heart are fed together can students experience the fullness of education which produces leaders who think well and are compelled to engage the world.

Recognized as a 2014 National Blue Ribbon School, Bear Creek serves students from the greater Eastside and is housed on four campuses.  Redmond Campus on Union Hill serves kindergarten to grade 12 students and Valley Campus, also in Redmond, serves preschool to grade 5 students. Bear Creek Preschool has two additional campuses in Woodinville and Sammamish serving students ages 3-5. The Bear Creek School is accredited by the Northwest Association of Independent Schools and AdvancED/Northwest Accreditation Commission.