By Julie Slama | [email protected]

It’s out with the old and in with the new. Or close.

Alta View Elementary held its last celebration in its 54-year-old school by hosting bomb shelter tours as well as increasing excitement of its new building by unveiling the school’s new logo.

“In the 1960s, students would go down into the shelter and sit down in the underground corridors or the two rooms during drills,” fifth-grade teacher and bomb tour guide Jesse Flink told families who wanted to see one of the “secrets” of the school before it would be torn down this summer. 

“Our new school doesn’t have bomb shelters,” she added.

Principal Karen Medlin said she remembers the fear of war with Russia during that era.

“I remember the intense bomb drills we had all throughout my town,” she said.

Karie and John Adrian toured the shelter with their first-grade grandson, Kaysen. However, Kaysen was more excited about the new school he’d be attending this fall.

“He told me that he loved seeing all the windows go up in the new building,” Karie said. “There’s supposed to be more natural light, which will be a welcome change from the dark hallways in this older building.”

John said they also would be in a better environment than the old school, which was filled with asbestos.

“Not only will it be an updated building, but also one with state-of-the-art computers and wiring for technology,” he said. “There won’t be any down time while trying to solve problems.”

Medlin said that by the end of July, asbestos crews should be ready for the demolition workers to begin tearing down the former school. 

The new two-story school has been under construction in the field behind the former school, and with that change, it will take on a new address, 917 E. Larkspur Drive. The school’s ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house is slated for Thursday, Aug. 17.

While Medlin also is excited for more natural lighting and windows as well as computer labs and mobile carts of Macbooks, iPads and Chromebooks, she also said that a stage that allows for community use, audio enhancement and projectors in classrooms, large group activity areas, a PTA room and lockers are some other key features.

“I am very excited for our community and our kids to see the new building,” she said.

PTA president 2015–16 Pam Brooks is excited as well.

“The new school has some really great features that the old building didn’t have like a much bigger gym or auditorium,” she said. “We have not been able to hold some activities the last few years that were traditions for a lot of years, like the winter sing-along, because there just was not enough room for the kids and parents. This lack of room has also affected Reflections and other assemblies that would involve not just the kids but parents and grandparents as well.”

Brooks also said that having an actual room for the PTA will help support students and the school. 

“In the past, the sick room doubled as the PTA workroom with only a closet to store all our supplies. A bigger area will help us organize better and serve the kids better,” she said.

Brooks said the original intent of the school was for the neighborhood. Through the years, students in the accelerated program and now in the Spanish dual-immersion program come to the school, many parents driving their students.

“The new school will have a lot more parking, which I’m sure will be especially nice for the neighbors,” she said.

However, students will wait until fall to see the inside of the new school and its improvements. What they didn’t have to wait for was Canyons School District graphic designer Jeff Olson’s new logo for the school.

“We needed to update it and I knew I had to get it right,” said Olson, who attended the school in the 1990s. “I couldn’t copy the Warner Brothers’ roadrunner as in the past, but wanted to give it a more sports feel. I didn’t want it to be cartoon-y, but one that will work through time.” 

Olson actually created a suite of logos with the same Alta View blue and yellow colors that would work well in various settings from school stationery to incorporating it into the new school. 

“It’s exciting to be a part of what Alta View is becoming, but still it hurts a little to see a piece of my childhood disappearing,” Olson said.