While the Fraser Woods Montessori School community celebrates the completion of its recent building expansion, the school's staff are setting their sights to future endeavors.

Over the summer, Fraser Woods finished its largest capital project in the school's history: a new Physical Education and Performing Arts Center with four new classrooms and expanded common areas.

This marks the third consecutive summer Fraser Woods has renovated its campus.

David Newman, entering his fifth year as Fraser Woods' head of school, said the building looks very different now compared to when he started. Back in 2022, Newman said the building had its original siding and schoolhouse red exterior, along with a leaky roof, old windows, a misshapen grass field with bumps and holes, and a playground that was not completely fenced in.

"So, right away, we identified some things that needed improvements and did some fundraising," Newman said. "We got some very generous donors to contribute to developing plans for creating a more usable and safer field in the back, to secure the playground, and to secure the exterior or the envelope of the building."

At the same time Newman started, he said Fraser Woods was fortunate enough to have a boost in enrollment; over the course of the last four years, the school increased its enrollment by 50%. This lined up with the school's administration wanting to upgrade and increase its number of learning spaces, creating the pathway for future renovation projects.

Newman said they developed a master plan for the outside of Fraser Woods and its grounds; they also hired a local landscape architect who helped with designing a new driveway and landscaping around the entire building. The field was also made possible through the generosity of the McChord Foundation.

The athletic field and campus grounds project, completed in the summer of 2024, brought with it a new multi-use synthetic athletic field that can be used across different seasons. Since it has a turf field and drains, the field absorbs heat so snow and ice melt faster, according to Newman.

In addition, he said they fenced in the field and the playground. This, along with the other campus grounds renovations, helped improve the school's safety and security as much as its aesthetics, according to Fraser Woods Director of Strategic Advancement Jill Skilton.

"We're really focused on not only the safety and security aspects, but also the aesthetics so that it feels good to be here, that it feels like a place where children want to be," Skilton added.

The summer of 2025 saw renovations to Fraser Woods' exterior, with new siding, roofing, and windows. Along the lines of safety and security, Newman said they upgraded the building's security systems with new technology and new cameras.

At the same time, they improved the building's interior by installing skylights.

"So every classroom has a source of natural light now, which is something that I think people … I think sometimes you can take it for granted, when you have a school building and you've got classrooms that don't have access to natural light, it's a very different feel," Newman explained. "For the remaining classrooms that didn't have natural light, we put skylights in. So every classroom has a source of natural light now."

The improvement of these education spaces, ones that let kids lead their own learning within a structured and prepared environment, ties into the most recent development: the new Physical Education and Performing Arts Center.

Newman said they worked with P H Architects LLC to come up with the plans for the expansion, while partnering with Verdi Construction to actually build it. The architects helped Fraser Woods design four new classrooms for grades six, seven, and eight, along with teacher storage space and hallways.

Newman said that the Physical Education and Performing Arts Center was created from a previously underutilized area of their campus: a storage space used by teachers. Renovating it into the new center meant adding heating and cooling, which the room did not previously have, according to Newman.

While Newman said the Physical Education and Performing Arts Center still needs some finishing touches, specifically the addition of curtains, sound panels, padded walls, and other furnishings, he added that it represents the growth of Fraser Woods' performing arts program.

"We hired a new director of performing arts and put on some wonderful shows, both during the school year and then in the summer program. We do run a summer camp, and so we've really invested in that too with new sound equipment and audio-visual equipment," Newman explained. "It's really become a signature program of ours."

For Newman and other Fraser Woods staff, they want the school to be a place where kids and families alike feel a sense of belonging.

"We just want the school to be a hub of community," Newman said. "We have families here from 30 different towns, so you could have kids who are friends in a classroom, live in totally different places, and have this be a place where those families get together."

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.