Students and teachers at Federal Way High School began their last semester in portables this week.

That’s because district officials estimate classrooms in the new school will be complete by this summer.

“Come this summer, when students stop coming to school for the most part, we will move out of those portables and start moving into the building itself,” said Jason Nelson, the project manager of maintenance and operations for the Federal Way High School rebuild. “And then the portables will go away over the summer and [we’ll] start demoing that area over the summer.”

Nelson recently presented a construction status update to the Federal Way Public Schools Board of Directors at their meeting on Tuesday.

Since work on the new school began in August 2014, students have moved into classroom portables. The south end of the high school and the Kenneth Jones Pool were demolished and construction of the new common space is underway (the steel beams, which can be seen from the Pacific Highway South).

Crews have installed air barrier windows and sheetrock in the southwest wing on the first and second floors. Nelson said there’s also brick going up on the south side of the building near South 308th Street.

“A lot has taken place in the last few months since I gave the last report,” Nelson told the school board.

In the coming months, framing will continue along Pacific Highway South, metal panels and masonry will progress and installation of all interior utility “rough-in,” such as plumbing and electrical work, will be done along with more sheetrock in the interior and work on the egg-shaped theater.

While many heads are turned to what the new building will look like, Nelson said they haven’t forgotten about preserving the original building.

“One of the things about a school as old as Federal Way is there’s a lot of historical features that we would like to bring forward,” he said, adding that the district got together with stakeholders in the community, teachers and students to go over important features they wanted to preserve in the new building.

A particular important element was a capstone that sat at the original entrance to the building. Nelson said the capstone will be in the almost exact same place as before, an idea that generated a lot of positive feedback.

The original high school also had a couple of veteran’s memorials throughout the grounds.

“One of the things that was important was to make sure those were captured in the new space and, after talking with the community members and some students, we all feel a good place for that is around the flag pole,” Nelson said.

The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, commonly known as the ROTC, at Federal Way High School raises the flag each morning and afternoon.

While the rest of the memorials and their future locations weren’t placed, Nelson said they haven’t been forgotten and will be incorporated in the new design.

After the majority of students move into their new classrooms in September, the interim campus will be demolished, leaving the cafeteria and gymnasium. Nelson mentioned there will be a safe path for students and faculty to walk to those locations, away from construction zones.

The theater won’t open until the second half of the school year in 2016-2017, with construction of the gym and cafeteria concluding before the 2017-2018 school year. That school year will be the last phase, as students completely move out of the old building and it’s demolished.

In addition to Nelson’s work, Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Sally McLean said Cindy Wendland, the director of Support Services Center, the city of Federal Way planning staff, district employees, architects at SRG and project managers from Greene Gasaway have also greatly contributed to the work done on the school.

“We are thrilled with the progress of the Federal Way High School construction project and pleased the contractor has met our major milestones of the project,” said Superintendent Tammy Campbell. “I would also like to thank our district and building teams for keeping us on schedule; it takes a lot to build a school.”

A rendering of the front entrance to the new school. Courtesy of SRG Architects