NEW West De Pere Intermediate School helps education system with grade re-alignment

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When the city of De Pere mades plans for West De Pere Intermediate School, Bray Architects collaborated with district officials and the public to find ways to accommodate a growing number of local 5th and 6th graders.

Part of the solution was to change the district’s grade configuration to 4K-through-4th grade elementary, 5th to 6th grade intermediate, 7th to 8th grade middle school and 9th to 12th grade high school.

Bray Architects’ decades of experience designing and building schools also helped. Clint Selle, Bray vice president and architect, said: “The parents were part a number of focus groups we did to help them understand why we were going through that and what challenges I thought that might lead to. I would say that was really the most important role, that we included the parents.”

Principals and teachers from the city’s other schools also contributed to the discussion. “The district didn’t have a 5th and 6th grade building prior to this,” Selle said. “So it was challenging,

designing a building with them on the fly as they were figuring out how they were going to instruct and utilize the building. The process led to many one-step -orward, two-steps-back moments.

But it was all in the interest of developing a building that could serve the district well into the future.”

The new, 123,000 square-foot school features various playful details, such as a trapezoid inset of orange flooring that begins as rubber tile in a science classroom and then extends into the hallway as carpeting. Other design elements cross thresholds and surfaces or go from the building’s exterior to its interior. The library’s expansive glass provides natural light during the day and views inside at night.

One of the school’s popular features, the “learning stairs,” was particularly satisfying to Selle.

He said, “During the dedication, a small group sang the national anthem. You do all the engineering in the prep, but until you see it in action you just don’t know how it’s going to perform.

Acoustically it was a really wonderful space. Getting an email from the principal to tell us they’re so thrilled with it was rewarding.”