Black Canyon Middle School construction almost finished

AMMON, Idaho (KIFI) - Construction is ahead of schedule at Black Canyon Middle School in Ammon. Principal Craig Miller took us on a tour to show it off.

Miller says construction is under budget as well.

"They've done a great job, right now they're planning on the end of April being pretty much done with construction," Miller said. "And then the month of May we'll start moving furniture in. June we'll allow the teaches who are transferring from other schools to get their stuff moved over here and into their classrooms."

Bonneville Joint School District 93 had safety in mind when designing, and has lots of security measures, starting with the main entrance.

"It's access controlled," Miller said. "It will kind of be like how Sandcreek and Rocky Mountain is now, where people can come in the front doors, but they cant get into the second doors, they have to come right into the office. So it's a nice security measure for that."

Miller also says the classroom pods they have set up not only provide additional safety for students and staff, but allow for more space for learning and working.

"So there are six of these, each pod has five classrooms in it," he said. "They all have one science lab, and then four other classrooms. So students will be in here for all their core classes, science, math, English and history. And then we'll have an elective class in each pod as well."

This makes it so students are staying in one area for most of the day.

The door to the pods lock, allowing the students to use the exit to escape in case of an emergency situation.

Miller also says the thing he's most excited for is to just fill the school with students in the fall.

"I think our focus this next year is really going to be about building relationships and working with students on the social emotional side of their health," Miller said. "Because with the pandemic and everything else going on in the last year, kids are so used to being behind a screen and not interacting with people as much as they need to be."

Miller expects there to be about 800 students when the new school year starts.