Principal Holly Call talked about putting together “a building that teaches.”

And with that in mind, as they planned for the Northshore School District’s transplanted Secondary Academy for Success (SAS), officials added in numerous features that will allow students, for example, to closely monitor the building’s heating and ventilation systems, the efficiency of its solar-power panels or the rain-water collection system on the roof.

And all of that will tie into a two-period program run in cooperation with national green building/energy efficiency corporation McKinstry. Ties already exist between the Seattle-based firm and SAS, but greatly will be strengthened in the new school location.

“Our students will be able to answer the question, ‘Why do I have to learn this?’” Call added.

Director of college and career readiness for the district, Damen Schuneman talked about preparing students for white-, blue- and green-collar jobs. Superintendent Larry Francois described the partnership with McKinstry as going well beyond the traditional school-district approach to business partnerships.

Francois said Northshore is not looking at McKinstry purely as a source of classroom materials or grant money, but as a genuine educational partner.

Designed primarily for at-risk students, Northshore’s SAS High School is being moved from its present location in the Anderson Building on Bothell Way Northeast to a spot on 23rd Drive Southeast in the Canyon Park area.

The old school building was part of last year’s district land sale to the city of Bothell and has been targeted for redevelopment. The new SAS location sits directly next to Northshore’s Support Services building.

Ryan Fujiwara of the Northshore facilities department said the new location was an empty building, basically a shell the district is filling in what officials clearly hope is an innovative way. At a cost of $6.1 million, the district expects the new SAS to be open for students next fall.

District leaders met April 13 with representatives of McKinstry, state education officials and visitors from other districts looking to possibly replicate the Northshore program. Local officials seemed more than happy to show off what they’ve done so far.

Call said that in designing the new building, planners partly used student suggestions as their guide.

“You’ll see a real sense of community when you walk in there,” she said.

As she talked about the building and later led a tour of the still-evolving structure, Call added students asked for something that didn’t have an institutional look with plenty of light and open spaces, but also places where they can be alone or broken off into small groups.

The response of designers includes rounded hallways to reduce any boxed institutional appearance, as well as big outdoor windows. Classrooms have glass walls that create a sense of openness and allow natural light to reach interior hallways. Call pointed to numerous panels students and staff can use to make different size common spaces.

As for the school’s ties to McKinstry, officials said the new building only will strengthen that partnership. The company is involved with creating the building’s environmental and green features and will help staff and students teach and learn those systems.

McKinstry’s Pat Anderson said one notion is to make the environmental controls in at least one room essentially go haywire and task students with finding the problem and fixing it. The overall program culminates with students going on job interviews at the company’s offices.

While taught at SAS, the program is open to all Northshore high-school students. Students can go on to related studies at Cascadia Community College, which was well represented during the recent SAS show and tell.

A Cascadia dean, Ron Wheadon talked about students earning a two-year associate degree in science degree, with a business and technical emphasis. The program’s credits largely are transferable to four-year universities.

One ultimate goal is, of course, to ready students for high-paying, high-demand jobs at green or environmental companies such as McKinstry. Probably predictably, the phrase “real world learning” came up repeatedly.

“This has had a huge impact,” said Call, who clearly expects that impact to continue and grow.