Mount Pocono Schools

Please click on the images above to see a larger version in a new window.

Bring on the growth! As testimony to the quality of life in the Poconos, the student population of Pocono Mountain School district grows by over 400 students per year. Projections indicate the student population will double in the coming decade.

To handle that kind of growth, BASCO Associates designed the District's 80-acre North Campus, where a two-story, 1,100 pupil elementary center (K-5) shares the site and support infrastructure with a brand new 1,600 student Intermediate School. The North Campus also features a special wastewater treatment plant that serves both schools.

Designed to maximize the "school-within-a-school concept, Mt. Pocono Elementary clusters classrooms around individual commons areas identified by color-coded overhead ceiling panels. Those panels showcase skylights on the second floor clusters.

The second-floor library harvests natural light through glass blocks on the schools south-facing façade. That building contains four kindergarten classrooms, 36 regular classrooms, a health suite, guidance area, administrative offices, a cafeteria, gymnasium and a large group instruction area.

BASCO created the Intermediate school on a sloping site by putting the two-story classroom pods and the library on lower terrain so that academic activities are clearly separated from the gymnasium, locker rooms, cafeteria, music areas, offices and a large assembly area complete with a raised program platform. Moveable partitions create smaller group instruction flexibility in the multi-purpose room as well as in the library where teachers can contain a class for instruction without disturbing others in the library. Mt. Pocono groups students in pods according to grade levels; and the BASCO design features color-coded floor inserts while the colors of door frames and student lockers also identify specific areas of the facility.

Computer technology is integral to the building with a fiberoptic Local Area Network (LAN) that interconnects with the adjacent Intermediate School and the Mt. Pocono School District Wide Area network (WAN).

The 27,000 gallon per day wastewater treatment plant for the North Campus functions inside a brick building so that the facility operates year-round in an area where severe winters and heavy snow please skiers, but would cripple a treatment plant.