The Snoqualmie Valley School District held two ground-breakings on Wednesday, June 8, one for a new gymnasium at Snoqualmie Elementary School, the other for the complete renovation of Mount Si High School.

The events started at 1 p.m. behind Snoqualmie Elementary School where students, teachers, parents, and district staff and board members gathered for the launch of the new gym project.

School District Superintendent Joel Aune spoke about the work done to prepare for the new gymnasium including design by architect David Huffman of Richart and Associates.

Board members and students together used the district’s traditional shovel, which has been used at many district ground-breakings including the event held for the new Timber Ridge Elementary in 2015, to move some earth and start the project.

Mount Si’s ground-breaking, held at 3 p.m. the same day, featured many of the same faces including Aune and the school board. Aune, speaking to an audience of student, and community members including Mayor Matt Larson, recognized all of the people responsible for working on the project and spoke about the school’s future.

“This is a very exciting time for us as we see this work continue on our journey to construct a new high school for our community, a new high school for the staff, and most importantly, for the thousands of students who will ultimately attend what we believe is going to be one of the finest high school facilities in the country,” Aune said.

Aune went on to thank everyone who voted for the $244 million bond proposition for the new development in February, 2015. The bond was the largest ever passed in the Snoqualmie Valley School District.

“The results were fantastic,” he said. “Their support for this bond proposition came from staff, it came from students, parents and community patrons. That level of support was truly unprecedented and that effort most definitely produced a result that was unprecedented. By far the largest bond proposition ever approved in our district and, up through last year, one of the largest ever approved in the state of Washington.”

Jeff Hogan, assistant superintendent, took up the microphone to speak about the history of the school, then handed the mike off to Mount Si Athletic Director Greg Hart to tell stories about attending the school in the 1970s and how it has developed over 40 years.

As for the ground-breaking itself, Aune had initially intended to use the same shovel that was used at Snoqualmie Elementary earlier in the day, but because the ground was too hard, he organized a construction team to help board members and key figures in the project do the job with a jack hammer.

Officials put on their hard hats and construction vests and went to work breaking slabs of concrete.

Construction on both projects begins this summer.