As Bonney Lake Elementary School begins to celebrate its 50th year, students and teachers are returning to a familiar campus and a familiar footprint, but a whole new school.

After a year spent at Donald Eismann Elementary in the area formerly known as Cascadia, the new and improved BLE is ready to open its doors.

The school modernization, approved by voters as part of a 2007 capital projects bond, included a near tear-down of the multiple buildings that make up the California-style school, though alumni will still recognize their old school.

Only now, thanks to skylights and windows added to almost every building, they can see it even better.

“It has so much of the feel (of the original) … but it’s a brand new, brighter, more functional school,” said principal Sandy Miller, who was part of the nearly 20 parents, teachers and district members that spent three years helping architects design and build the school.

The most noticeable enhancement from the outside are the new rooflines that stretch higher into the sky and feature skylights to allow more natural light into the classrooms and common spaces than the original.

New, taller ceilings also cover the paths and several of the overhangs have been changed to either provide more coverage or allow in more light, depending on the location.

The school is also banking heavier in its “Viking” mascot, running with a more nautical theme that influenced everything from the carpeting (note the islands, beaches and water colors) to the re-naming of the outer buildings.

“Instead of calling them pods,” Miller said, “We’ll make them islands.”

Inside, common areas are bigger and teachers have more storage in their rooms and in the common areas, which include projectors and teaching areas.

All classrooms now include projectors as well and are wired for sound. Each room will also get new tablet computers that are networked with a teacher’s tablet and with the projectors, turning each tablet into a control and each white board into something resembling a smart board.

Miller said the new design also makes much better use of space. Though using the original footprints, Miller said architects eliminated many of the weird internal angles that left parts of each building practically unusable.

“We tried to go with function as much as we could,” Miller said.

Also re-built are the school’s library, which is bigger and much more modern, and the gym, which keeps the original shape, but with added skylights. “It was just a cave in here,” Miller said. Also re-built is the school cafeteria, now known as the “Viking Galley.”

The Galley has been enlarged from the previous school to allow an entire class inside at once. Because students at Bonney Lake Elementary eat lunch in their classrooms, they visit the Galley and take their food with them. In the past, Miller said only a handful of students could enter the cafeteria at one time, leaving some waiting outside.

With the new, larger Galley, that is no longer necessary.

The new school also features enhanced security measures, such as the removal of outside doors from classrooms and a single button – housed in the main office in the building now known as the “Viking Mainland” – that can lock down the entire school with a single touch.

Miller said the new windows in the Mainland not only provide additional light, but also give staff the ability to see much more of the school grounds at a single time.

Another change for parents will be a re-routing of the school’s bus loop. Prior to the redesign, parents dropping off students and the buses were forced out of a single entrance. Now, buses will both enter and exit out the rear of the school property while parents will continue to use the front.

A new music room has also been added to the “island” that includes the gym and the school’s stage.

“The use of space is so much more functional and beautiful,” Miller said.

Miller said the school has always had great support from families, as well as great teachers and students, but the new building “kind of pulls it all together” and, she hopes, will create a sense of “renewed pride” this year at Bonney Lake Elementary.

Parents and students can get their first look at the new school during a Back-to-School night beginning at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 1.

The first day of school will be Sept. 7.

Miller said she is excited for the community to see the new buildings, which she called “a gift.”

“It has the feel of the old school” she said, adding that the modernization prepares the building for the next 50 years. “We just have the best of both worlds.”