Pine Grove Learning Center Opens Its Doors

Pine Grove logo

Pine Grove Learning Center, a new special education facility aimed at serving students with multiple impairments and autism spectrum disorder, is complete! The 49,000 square foot school, located at 2101 52nd SW in Wyoming, opened its doors to students September 8, 2009.

Building Facts & Features

Serve approximately 70 students, ages 5-26
$7.2 million construction cost
Land purchased from Grandville Public Schools
Spacious rooms and hallways to accommodate extensive specialty equipment
Sensory room and garden
All classrooms have access to kitchenettes (for student food preparation) and office areas
Therapy pool ranging in depth from 4" to 3.5'
Ample bus parking and loading areas

Our partners in this project include the architects, Progressive AE and the construction managers, Triangle Associates. Progressive AE is a nationally recognized architecture, engineering, construction and consulting firm with a tradition of corporate and personal involvement in the community. Triangle Associates, a client-centered construction company, provides general contracting, construction management and design\building services across a wide variety of business sectors, and is celebrating its 90^th anniversary.

New Pine Grove Special Education Facility Features
Therapeutic, Sensory Options

GRAND RAPIDS – A sensory garden with water features, plant textures, sights and smells is one of several unique features to help engage special education students at the new Pine Grove Learning Center, to be dedicated at 10 a.m. Wednesday, September 2.

This extraordinary school, designed specifically for the most severely challenged of the student population throughout Kent ISD and its 20 public school districts, welcomes students when school starts Tuesday, September 8. In addition to features like a Therapy Pool and Sensory room, the facility was built to LEED standards to lessen its environmental impact. Some of the environmental features include walls that never need paint, local building material and specialized heating/cooling components.

The Pine Grove Learning Center will serve approximately 70 severely impaired students, ages 5-26, with a wide range of learning needs. It is the first new school of its type since the 1960s built within Kent ISD boundaries. This new school was built because both the Lincoln Campus, on the Northeast side of the region, and the Ken-O-Sha center to the southeast, were out of space. The new campus will serve a growing population of special needs students in the Southwest region of Kent ISD.

“We are extremely pleased to open this new learning environment for special needs students in this rapidly growing portion of our community,” said Kent ISD Superintendent Kevin Konarska. “The Pine Grove school will reduce travel time for students and also alleviate overcrowding at Lincoln Campus.”

Joining Konarska at the dedication ceremony will be Dr. Bernard Taylor, superintendent of Grand Rapids Public Schools, and Wyoming Mayor Carol Sheets. Kent ISD owns the Pine Grove Learning Center, as it does the Lincoln Campus, and will contract with Grand Rapids Public Schools to operate the facility.

The 49,000 square-foot facility features spacious hallways and classrooms to accommodate the specialized equipment needed for the student population. The school is designed as a grouping of neighborhoods around a central activity/therapy core. In addition to space for small group instruction, there is access to a kitchenette for student food preparation and a personal care area. The building also features a sensory room and therapy pool to help prepare students for learning.

Nearly 17,000 of the more than 120,000 students within Kent ISD have special needs; about 10 percent of those are served in center programs such as those housed at Pine Grove, Lincoln Campus and Ken-O-Sha.

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