The Bellevue School District is pursuing a partnership with Microsoft for Elementary 18, the district’s first entirely new elementary school in years, Superintendent Tim Mills recently announced.
“This is giving us an opportunity to envision and build classroom experiences that is really, truly integrating new approaches to teaching with technology,” Mills told the school board Nov. 17, the same day in which the district had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Redmond-based corporation.
Elementary 18, which has yet to be named, will be the second school in the district to work with Microsoft.
The company already works with Sammamish High School through their Microsoft Showcase Schools program. The 150 schools involved in the program globally use technology to drive a learning in a multitude of situations and environments.
“One of the things that we’re excited about is using the opportunity to prototype out in the field solutions that aren’t in the marketplace,” said Mark Sparvell, Senior Manager School Leader Audience Worldwide Public Sector, who is heading the Elementary 18 partnership. That being said, he said the partnership is about more than Microsoft providing certain technology or software.
“There was conversation early on about what types of learners they were interested in building,” he added.
A large part of influencing learning through technology at Elementary 18 will be the creation of variable, technology-integrated learning spaces, he said. There’s a multitude of ways to create said spaces, including a mixture of quiet work areas and open learning areas and horizontal and vertical displays. Having all the desks in a classroom facing the front may still occur, but is not the dominant model, according to Sparvell.
“We’re excited to have the permission to think differently about learning spaces. Technology and design can be approached in ways that may be different to mainstream, but don’t look as if they’re in a science-fiction movie,” he said.
Most of the American schools currently involved in the Showcase program — including Sammamish — are secondary schools, but Sparvell said Microsoft is looking forward to working with younger students at a greater extent.
“We see the early years as being foundational in establishing lifelong learners,” he said. “Also, we know that there will be a diversity of learners and language groups who will require machine translations and other adaptive technology solutions to help ESL or other students with learning needs that we can assist and learn from.”
Elementary 18 will draw students from around the downtown and Wilburton areas, relieving overcrowding at Enatai, Woodridge and Clyde Hill. As the Reporter previously reported, enrollment is growing by roughly three percent annually, or close to 600 additional students each year.
Work on the new school and the partnership with Microsoft is expected to take shape over the next 18 months, said Mills.
The district has already begun the permit application and design process for the school, and will be hiring the school’s principal this spring. In addition to the existing steering committee made up of a dozen district staff members, they will be establishing a teacher advisory committee of 10-12 members to give input on the school, Mills added.
“We’re very excited to be moving forward with Microsoft, and we find that this is just an incredible opportunity,” he said.
Microsoft is hoping to reach a definitive agreement with the district by January, said Sparvell.
