Almost a year after a late night fire burned Whatcom Middle School down parents still have concerns with how their children will cope with the loss of their school.
Whatcom Middle School parent Wendy Albrecht said the time after the fire was an emotional one. Her son was a seventh grader at the time of the fire. She said she thinks these children have gained compassion for tragedies because they themselves have been through one.
“Without a school our kids are still suffering,” Albrecht said. “They are missing out on a huge portion of their lives.”
Another Whatcom Middle School parent Kerrie Zerba said her biggest concern was students not being able to identify themselves as a Whatcom Middle School student. Spread out among three different schools, the children are no longer the Whatcom Wildcats, she said.
“There was a lot of conversation about how kids can be resilient, but there was little conversation about being a Whatcom School and a Whatcom family,” Zerba said. “For kid that are at that funny age that’s all they really have is their school.”
While the rebuilding of Whatcom Middle School is underway, it will not be completed until fall of 2012. Students have two more schools years, this school year and the next, attending different schools.
This year sixth graders are attending Geneva Elementary School, seventh graders are attending Shuskan Middle School and eighth graders are at Fairhaven Middle School. Next year sixth grade students will remain at Geneva Elementary School, seventh grade students will attend Fairhaven Middle School and eighth graders will attend Shuskan Middle School.
Zerba said she worries about most students attending three different schools throughout their middle school career when typically a student stays in one school during these years. She said being an elementary school teacher she knows how difficult it is to be a transient kid.
“As an educator you know what it does to children and you wouldn’t do it to your own and it’s going to happen,” Zerba said. “It’s tough.”
Albrecht said Whatcom Middle School parents are not ungrateful for the schools that have taken the children in, but she sees that the students are missing out on being a part of their own school.
Currently construction is underway to repair the damaged building. The exterior walls are being reinforced around the damaged inside of the building said Tanya Rowe, Communications Director for Bellingham Public Schools. The damaged interior will be demolished when the outside is complete.
The exterior walls are expected to finish in December and construction on the interior is expected to begin in the new year, Rowe said.
A few minor changes will be made to the outward appearance like altering window shapes, but other than that the building will be the same, Whatcom Middle School Principal Jeff Coulter said.
The original building was built in 1903, making Whatcom Middle School the oldest existing school building in the Bellingham School District. In 1916 the size of the building was tripled when new additions were added. The building was originally Whatcom High School and has also served as a junior high before becoming Whatcom Middle School in 1967.
At the time of the fire the school was undergoing retrofitting, which was to provide better earthquake protection, Coulter said. The retrofitting was an 18-month process that was three weeks from being completed at the time of the fire, he said. The cause of the fire is still not known.
Zerba said it was never the building itself that made Whatcom Middle School special, but the community within. It was a beautiful old building, but it needed a facelift, she said.
Zerba said most people walked to school and everybody knows everybody. The school had a neighborhood feel, she said, and being at a new school is different.
“That was one of the things that was shocking for me to be in a new building now in Fairhaven [Middle School],” Zerba said. “They are so kind, but I don’t know anybody because they aren’t in my neighborhood.”
Zerba said she is sure that if the fire has happened to Kulshan Middle School, those parents would be saying the same things.
“When it’s your kid’s school and you watch your kid turn from this quirky little fifth grader to a real mature eighth grader you think the school did it [changed the kids].” Zerba said.
Coulter is currently serving as the principal at Columbia Elementary School and he said it is nice and has supportive families, but he is looking forward to being back at Whatcom Middle School.
“I’m a middle school guy. I have been for a long time,” he said. “I understand the middle school minds. I love elementary, but I love middle school a bit more.”
