YAKIMA, Wash. -- Let Jean Seibert show you around.

Leading the way through the halls a couple weeks before the first day of school, she pauses to point out the new computer lab in the new library, filled with natural light from a wall of windows.

Located just inside the front doors, the library and lab are among the most visible changes to the former West Valley High School campus.

When school starts Tuesday, the old school is reopening -- newly remodeled and renamed -- for ninth-graders only.

The new look comes courtesy of a $7 million remodel, financed mostly through state matching funds.

Almost everything in the old building is new, except for the tables and chairs, filing cabinets and desks.

"We saved the best of the best old furniture," says Seibert, principal of the new West Valley High School Freshman Campus.

Workers were still completing "punch list" items -- painting door frames and waxing floors, among other finishing touches -- as Seibert worked her way around the renovated building. New lockers in "Columbia blue" have been installed. So have skylights, seven new classrooms and two new computer labs, including the one in the library.

The electrical and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems have been upgraded. A push-button security system -- allowing for instant, emergency lockdowns -- has been added. And the two girls' locker rooms were finally the same size as the boys': 1,600 square feet and 1,000 square feet, respectively.

An aim was to make the place feel open and airy, but provide 21st-century security, according to architect Kent Chadwell with the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-based Architects West.

The only real visible remnant of the old school: the signature barrel-dome ceiling in the old gym.

Seibert loves the new look -- from the carpeting and energy-efficient windows to the tack-strips that line the halls. Overall, she says, "It's much more open and much more secure."

And it's for freshmen only.

This school year, West Valley ninth-graders won't have to share the halls with seventh- or eighth-graders, like they did in the old days at West Valley Junior High School. And they won't have to share the halls with upperclassmen, either.

And that makes the campus one-of-a-kind, at least in Washington.

But, Seibert stresses, it's not some stand-alone entity. It might be a separate campus, but it's part of West Valley High School. Like the neighboring campus for sophomores, juniors and seniors just down Zier Road, this is the Home of the Rams.

"It's one high school on two campuses. That is the umbrella philosophy," Seibert says. "What happens on the freshman campus is clearly and intentionally related to what happens on the 10-12 campus. We're connected."

And that's something she and her staff of about 30, including 20 teachers, will be "hammering" into this year's 400-plus freshmen. As soon as they walk through the doors, Seibert says, "the clock starts ticking for graduation.

"Everything they do from here on out counts," she says. "We have increasing state requirements ... there's no cushion. Now they are in high school, and it matters."

But it can be difficult for ninth-graders to adopt that mindset when they're in a junior high setting, like they were under the old format, according to Seibert.

The smaller school environment at the new ninth-grade campus will help freshmen make the transition to high school and begin to focus on graduation requirements without the distraction of older students, she says.

There are considerable emotional and social differences between a 14-year-old freshman and an 18-year-old senior, she says. And, with increasing demands, there isn't much room for missteps.

"High school is no longer a place to explore," Seibert says. "We have to be much more methodical in helping guide these students."

Older high schoolers moved down the street to their new building last fall. At that time, work was already under way to transform the old high school into a freshman-only campus.

Before that, district officials were talking about how to best use existing infrastructure in the face of continued growth and the aftermath of a bond measure failure.

"We were out of space in the district," Seibert says. "And we continue to grow."

A $28 million bond measure to rebuild two elementary schools failed last year, prompting school leaders to come up with another plan: limiting the six elementary schools to kindergarten through fourth grade, moving fifth-graders to the middle school, transferring seventh-graders to the junior high and giving freshmen their own school.

It wasn't the first time the district had trouble passing a bond measure, which historically has been a hard sell in West Valley. The proposal to build the new high school, for example, first went before voters in 1998. After multiple failures, the $52.3 million bond measure finally passed in May 2006.

By then, the old high school, built in 1955 for 400 students, was outdated and crowded, serving more than 1,100 students.

While rare, ninth-grade-only campuses aren't a new concept. In this state, they date back to the early 1990s when the Snohomish School District converted a junior high into a freshman campus. It opened in 1992, but closed two years ago. With the opening of a new high school, the second in what had been a one-high-school district, it was no longer needed.

And this fall, the former Pacific Cascade Freshman Campus in the Issaquah School District is reopening as Pacific Cascade Middle School to address crowding issues.

Unlike those two ninth-grade campuses, which proved to be temporary, West Valley's school leaders expect this configuration to last long-term.

Like those two facilities, West Valley's transition to a ninth-grade-only campus was spurred by growth, particularly at the elementary school level. In the past three years, about 300 additional elementary students -- including some 60 children last year -- have entered the district, which serves about 4,800 students.

With the opening of the new ninth-grade campus, there will be some back-and-forth between both campuses for school assemblies and freshmen in choir, upper-level Spanish and German language classes, and the Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, or JROTC.

The walk between the two campuses takes about five minutes, says Seibert, who's tested it herself: "If I can do it, they can do it."

She stresses the teachers at the ninth-grade campus, most of whom are transferring from the junior high or middle school, are looking forward to their first year under the new model.

"They applied to come to the campus knowing what its mission was," she says. "This is high school, and it is high school for teachers as well as high school for students."

While the move will be a change for students and teachers, it marks a homecoming of sorts for Seibert, who's starting her tenth year with the district. Jim Berndt, former principal of the junior high, was slated to take the helm of the freshman campus, but decided to retire from the district during the summer, allowing Seibert to move back to the building.

Last year, she was co-administrator of the new high school next door. Before that, for eight years, she was the principal here.

Debbie Albrecht, a Language Arts teacher who's starting her fourth year with the district, is coming to the ninth-grade campus after three years at the junior high. She says she's looking forward to working with a tight-knit teaching staff and doing more group activities with students.

"Everybody's excited about it," she says. "We're not in it for the nice, fancy building or the newness or whatever. We're all here because we want the kids to have a successful high school experience."

Ed Godoy, father of freshman class president Jordan Godoy, 15, says he thinks the ninth-grade campus is a "great" idea: "And my son is excited about it, too.

"Rather than throw the young ones in there with the big kids, it just gives them a nice transition," he says. "I think that's a big plus, that we have a unique thing going on here."

* Adriana Janovich can be reached at 509-577-7653 or ajanovich@yakimaherald.com.