‘It’s about time’: Much anticipated new Pierce County high school finally breaks ground

The crest of Mt. Rainier poked out of the clouds Tuesday evening as more than 100 students, families and local officials gathered in front of an empty field behind Rainier View Church in Graham, the future site of the much-anticipated new Bethel High School.

After much fanfare from the Bethel High School pep band, school officials and students ceremoniously dug their shovels into the dirt where a larger, technologically-savvy building will open in fall 2026.

In the next two years a new two-story, 285,000-square- foot building will stand at this site, with a new performing arts center, gymnasium, large classrooms and space for welding classes, as well as other career and technical education courses. It’s a result of nearly 17 years of planning and delays, and construction will be funded through the 2019 school bond.

“It’s about time,” said Bethel School Board President Marcus Young in a speech to attendees Tuesday. “This is a community that’s been in anticipation for this day. We’ve heard that it was coming, we’ve waited for it to come. And now it’s right there on the horizon. I would like that to be your encouragement as you all move on through high school and even through life — there’s always somebody that’s around you fighting for you.”

New school will address overcrowding, tech issues

Bethel High School principal Christy Rodriguez said students have long outgrown the current building at 22215 38th Ave. E in Spanaway.

Built in 1952, it’s the oldest school in the Bethel School District. Water damage, plumbing issues and aging infrastructure have plagued the school for years, as has overcrowding. Some students have had to sit on the floor or counters during class because there aren’t enough chairs or physical space for them, as reported by students in a 2019 regional Emmy-winning documentary titled, “Bethel High — A School In Need.”

Rodriguez said there are currently 21 temporary portable classrooms in use on campus to accommodate the nearly 1,500 students in grades 9-12. That’s impacted students’ ability to learn, she said.

“We don’t have … as many restroom facilities for students as we’d like, our cafeteria is very small,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve had to convert some classrooms, but they’re still not up to what we would like for our Career Technical Education classes.”

The new school will be able to hold up to 1,800 students, meaning there will be no more need for portable classrooms, said Sara Coccia, director of construction and planning for the Bethel School District.

There will be more space for students to move around in the hallways and a new weight room. The new building will also have a new auditorium with state-of-the-art lighting and sound equipment, “which is a far cry better than what we have,” Rodriguez said. “We’re [also] going to have an additional music classroom, right now we have just two so it’s hard to balance having orchestra, band and choir.”

Given the age of the old building, it will be more efficient to bring in needed technology upgrades with the new design, said Michael Christianson, the district’s chief technology officer and executive director of the district’s Career Technical Education department.

Christianson said he’s excited for the new campus to be mostly wireless, with an updated Wi-Fi system and more usable outlets. Currently the school experiences shortages if too many outlets are used, and the Wi-Fi doesn’t work in all areas of campus, he said.

The new Bethel High School will be able to offer unique programs like welding, and there will be updated STEM and engineering labs, interactive technology for teachers and more technology added to the library to encourage group work and studying, he said. A larger power grid will also allow the school to put up additional security cameras and security doors, as well as improve the intercom and other school communications, Christianson said.

“This will really give us the flexibility to design labs that fit the curriculum and fit the standards and also be flexible,” Christianson said. “The plan is to not have so many things built in and fixed so as things change and technology changes we can also change and provide current instruction.”

Bethel School board highlights additional area needs

At a joint school board meeting with the Pierce County Council after the groundbreaking Tuesday night, local leaders discussed other challenges facing the school district overall.

Among concerns highlighted by students, board members, residents and Superintendent Tom Seigel were a general lack of adequate street lights and sidewalks in the district, which has continued to put students at risk, especially those walking to and from school.

Other issues raised at the meeting included the lack of public parks, swimming pools and Boys and Girls Clubs in unincorporated Pierce County, as well as gaps in bus service and comprehensive public library service, all of which have negatively impacted residents’ quality of life.

Young said to the county council, “oftentimes this area feels like we’re being punished because we haven’t created [our own municipality], even though there have been studies that have shown that fiscally it is not feasible right now to develop a municipality.”

As more people are being priced out of the urban areas of Pierce County like Tacoma, they’re moving to unincorporated Pierce County and the Bethel School District, Young said, which doesn’t have the adequate infrastructure or resources to accommodate that growth.

“As growth is happening, we have to have some sort of those basic fundamental structures that actually support that growth,” he said.

Councilmembers acknowledged the gaps and expressed interest in continued dialogue and partnerships..

Hugh Taylor, county policy director and deputy chief of staff, said although the county and county council don’t have direct control over the independent library system, Pierce Transit or private entities like the YMCA or Boys and Girls Clubs, “we do have influence and we do need to be working together to make sure there’s sufficient service where residents are living.”

Projects in the pipeline for the Bethel School District area in the next four years include a $10.3 million investment from the state for new sidewalks, $37 million in transportation improvements and $167 million in park improvements, according to a memorandum included in the Bethel School District meeting agenda.

“We’ve had 40 years of bad planning, lack of investments and investments not keeping up with where the growth is … That’s not going to make anybody in this room fall out of their chair, we’re seeing the reality of those missteps,” said council chair Ryan Mello at the meeting. “We’re trying to play catch up, as you can see with some of the investments we’re going to make. It’s going to take a lot of time, and that catch up is going to be expensive, but we’ve got to do it.”