Jemtegaard community says goodbye to school building

The Washougal School District invited former and current teachers, students and staff to a barbecue Friday to say goodbye to the original school.

The rain was a fitting going-away present, as many memories of the building itself were tied to how Jemtegaard handled the weather. The school has an open concept, with separate buildings and a need to go outside to get from one location to the next.

“When it rains, it just gets really wet,” Principal David Cooke said. “We get pools and waterfalls. I’ll always remember the chaos that happens when it rained.”

The new Jemtegaard — which will be housed in one building — will have state-of-the-art technology rooms, allow in more natural light and handle the elements a bit better. It will also increase capacity to about 600 students.

Currently, there are about 530 students at Jemtegaard, which previously used nine portables. That number dropped down to three portables, as the school had to get rid of six due to construction on the new building right behind the current one. The new Jemtegaard will share the campus with the new Columbia River Gorge Elementary School, also opening in the fall.

Demolition on the current Jemtegaard will begin around June 26, Cooke said. The site of the current school will house a new running track and parking lot.

It’s been a hectic year for the school with all of the construction, Cooke said.

“It feels like everyone is getting fired,” he said. “Everyone is packing everything up. There’s a lot of mixed emotion because we’re moving into this great, new building but leaving behind this one.”

The students are enjoying the countdown to the move, if only because it means they can draw on the walls. The band room is covered in students’ names and short notes written in colorful markers on the white tile walls. On the brick school exterior, students have also said goodbye with notes that read “RIP JMS” written in chalk.

Before students could sign their names on the actual building, there was another place at Jemtegaard students could sign: the two chairs in Scott Rainey’s classroom.

The chairs were taken from the original teachers lounge from when it opened in 1981. Rainey, who has been at Jemtegaard for 19 years, said students started signing the chairs in the late 1990s. The wooden handles are covered in names, as are the flattened and faded brown cushions, which have been turned every which way, including inside out so students can find the tiniest bit of open space for their signatures.

Rainey said he is sad to see the building go.

“It’s a wonky design,” he said. “The open concept, it’s wonderful in parts of the country that aren’t the Gorge. When it’s windy and a student opens the door, the ceiling tiles flop around. It gave us a lot of laughs.”

Herrmann also remembers the strong east winds.

“There’s nothing like Washougal on a windy day,” she said. “If the door opened to a classroom, you couldn’t close it. You’d have to put the biggest football player on it to get it closed.”

While the building had its issues, former and current employees said it was a great school to teach at, primarily because of the students and staff.

“I’ve met a lot of people who had Gudrun Jemtegaard, who this school is named for, as their teacher,” Rainey said. “Everyone said she was their most beloved teacher, someone who did everything she could to take care of her kids. She never married. She didn’t have kids. Her students were her kids. I couldn’t think of a more fitting person to name this school after.

“It’s home for many kids. It’s a place where they can feel safe,” Rainey added. “Middle school is such a place of change, and it’s a joy to see these kids come in as sixth-graders and see how they leave as eighth-graders.”