Growth spurs school-building boom

When Little Cedars Elementary opens in September near Highway 9 and Cathcart Way, two portable classrooms will stand at the edge of the new school. Designed for 700 students, Little Cedars will need the additional classroom space within a year or two, district officials say, as the area between Snohomish and Mill Creek continues to grow.

As fast as many school districts in the county are building schools, housing developments and new families are arriving faster, say school and county officials. Last year, Snohomish County led the state in new school construction, according to figures from the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Currently in the county, 11 new schools are under construction: four comprehensive high schools, two alternative high schools, a mid high school, an alternative middle school and three elementary schools, with a total value of about $563 million.

County planners say that single-family housing continues to dominate the local housing market, attracting a higher percentage of families than do the apartments and condominiums increasingly built in the more urban areas around Puget Sound.

"There's definitely a relationship between the number of single-family houses, the amount of children and the pressure on schools," said Craig Ladiser, planning director for Snohomish County.

And housing in the county continues to be more affordable than in Seattle and its closer suburbs, Ladiser noted. With the county population projected to grow by almost 300,000 people by 2025, the need for new schools is unlikely to lessen any time soon.

The four new comprehensive high schools being built in the county are Granite Falls High School, a $34 million project scheduled to open in December 2007; Glacier Peak High School in the Snohomish School District, being built for $88.3 million and opening in fall 2008; Lynnwood High School, a $99 million project opening in fall 2009; and the $79 million Marysville-Getchell High School, which will open in fall 2011.

Additionally, Marysville is building an Options Campus of prefabricated modular construction to house three alternative programs — Arts and Technology High School, Heritage High School and 10th Street Middle School. The $24 million campus is scheduled to open in September.

Snohomish High School and Bothell High School are both being renovated. Snohomish High School's $64 million remodel will include new classrooms for career and technical education and science and arts laboratories. The new wing will open in fall 2008.

Bothell High School, originally built in 1953, will get a $35 million renovation that includes new classrooms, cafeteria, kitchen, offices and commons.

Lake Stevens School District will open Calevero Mid High School in September. The $66.8 million school initially will serve eighth- and ninth-graders but is designed to become the district's second high school as enrollment grows.

Forest View Elementary in the Everett School District will open in September. The district's 17th elementary school will initially enroll 355 students, but is being built to hold 550. The $30 million school is located in the Silver Firs neighborhood east of Mill Creek and adjacent to Gateway Middle School.

Grove Elementary in the Marysville School District will open in fall 2008. The $20 million project will house 550 students.

While many areas of the county are experiencing rapid growth, the strong local economy has slowed enrollment at the county's two-year colleges, Everett and Edmonds community colleges. After several years of double-digit growth, both schools have had to make budget adjustments to account for the decrease in students seeking retraining or earning associate degrees.

But the county's growth was a factor in the 2007 Legislature's decision to create a University of Washington branch campus to serve the North Snohomish, Island and Skagit county regions.

Consultants working with the state's Higher Education Coordinating Board projected that by 2025, 11,000 students in the three-county region wouldn't be able to find a place at state community or four-year colleges, even if those schools were expanded to their maximum capacity.

The consultants also said Snohomish County had one of the state's lowest percentages of residents with undergraduate degrees, likely because there is no four-year state college between Seattle and Bellingham.

The Legislature appropriated $4 million to plan for the UW branch campus and to select a site, likely somewhere between Everett and Marysville. The first upper-division courses, with a focus on science, engineering and technology, could be offered in winter 2008.

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807