6/05/08

District celebrates official opening of Marysville Secondary Options campus

by Sam Severn

The new gym floors glistened.

The sunlit buildings gleamed.

Balloons soared and tribal drum beats filled the skies.

Beaming smiles of Marysville School Board members, Tulalip Tribal officials, and construction contractors greeted the public Saturday morning at the dedication ceremony for Marysville Secondary Campus (MSC) in Tulalip.

The new campus consists of Marysville Arts & Technology High School, Heritage High School, and 10th Street School, a middle school.

The schools share the 84,000 square foot campus, a common administration building, and a 12,000 square foot gymnasium.

A state-of-the-art kitchen, located north of the gym, provides food for all three schools.

The $24 million funding for the schools was achieved by using permit fees from the construction of new homes and state matching funds. No costs for construction of MSC were passed on to Marysville taxpayers.

To construct the schools, modular sections of each building were designed in factories, then put together on the Tulalip site. This kept construction costs at 50-70 percent of the typical cost of high school spaces.

Building crews utilized recycled materials, including tree stumps for the enhancement of local fish habitat. The school district coordinated with the Tulalip Tribes for use of cedar bark in the classrooms. Modular manufacturing methods also reduced the amount of construction waste, school officials announced.

Ground was broken at the new campus on April 21, 2007. The last of the three buildings was opened to students almost exactly a year later, on April 28, 2008.

More than 700 students are eventually expected to fill the halls.

Principal Martha Fulton pointed out that Heritage High School has roots going back more than a decade, to The Salmon School. Before moving to its new home, the school had been housed in portables near the Marysville Boys and Girls Club since the fall of 2000.

“Four years ago, (our school district) had 117 portables,” Marysville Schools Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland noted. “It’s exciting to come together now and to see what’s possible with a lot of planning and dreaming, and without going to the taxpayers and asking them for more money.”

After a tribal blessing and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the campus flagpole, the public was invited to tour the new buildings.

“It’s a wonderful sunny day!” beamed Assistant Superintendent Gail Miller to the crowd. Superintendent Nyland seconded that, calling it a day of celebration.

The parents, students, administrators and guests touring the new campus saw more than the glistening gym floors, fresh coats of paint, blossoming baby trees and sun-splashed buildings.

They saw hopes. Persistence paying off, dreams becoming reality.

Bright, shiny futures.