Big changes are looming for the Tahoma School District. Not only are district officials planning for a new high school, they are also working on a reconfiguration plan for the rest of their schools for when the project is completed.

One of the biggest changes students and parents will see is at Lake Wilderness Elementary School.

As part of the bond approved by voters in November 2013, the approximately 1,100-student school will be remodeled and potentially reduced from two buildings to one.

The current Lake Wilderness Elementary School is composed of two primary buildings, one dating back to 1959 and the other to 1986. The older one, naturally, is more or less falling apart, said Kevin Patterson, spokesperson for the Tahoma School District.

“It would need some major upgrades to bring it to the same quality level as our other schools,” he said.

At the Dec. 16 school board meeting, the board agreed to hire TCF Architecture of Tacoma for the project. The firm specializes in school and public facilities design.

Eliminating one of the buildings at Lake Wilderness Elementary will result in an enrollment reduction to 550.

But, the school district has a plan of where they will shuffle these students around.

Once the new high school is built, most of the other schools will be reconfigured.

What is now the high school will become a middle school, serving grades six through eight. The current Tahoma Junior High will become a middle school, enrolling the same grades, and the two current middle schools, Cedar River and Tahoma Middle School, will become elementary schools.

In total, there will be one high school (grades nine to 12), two middle schools (grades six to eight) and six elementary schools (K through five). (Find a map of the changes on www.maplevalleyreporter.com).

One thing that still needs to be sorted out is which students will be moved to what school.

The district is still in the process of reworking the geographical boundaries for each school’s attendance areas. The new areas will go into effect when the new high school is open, September 2017. Superintendent Rob Morrow said parents will be notified regarding where their school assignment will be, one year prior to the big move.

Depending on what the architect designs, district officials plan to have majority of the remodel done next summer. Their hope is to have most of it done by the time the new high school is finished, said Patterson.