SEQUIM — For the first time in nearly a decade, Sequim School District leaders are preparing to ask voters to replace Helen Haller Elementary School along with significant portions of Sequim High School.
Board directors on Tuesday got their first look at three bond proposals developed by members of the district’s Long Range Facility Planning Group, which, over the past several months, assessed the current condition of Sequim schools, collaborated with experts to evaluate structural integrity, safety and functionality, and prioritized necessary repairs or upgrades.
If board directors approve a ballot measure, voters could decide on a bond, which would need a supermajority of 60 percent to pass, in a special election in February 2025. If approved, funding would come to the district in 2026.
The district will host a public forum at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the gymnasium at Helen Haller Elementary School, 350 W. Fir St., to discuss aspects of the bond options. A second public forum is set for 5 p.m. Oct. 15 in the Sequim High School library.
“We all recognize that our district faces some challenges with facilities,” Sequim schools superintendent Nickels told school board directors at the special meeting last Tuesday. “The Long Range Facilities Planning Group has listened far and wide about those challenges.”
Dale White, a planning group member, said he didn’t really pay much attention to school facility conditions until his grandchildren started in school, and that spurred him to join the 13-member committee that features parents, staff, board directors and community members.
“We were blank slates,” White told board directors, recounting the time they spent examining conditions at each Sequim school building.
“It really was a process of seeing the state of things … and realizing they weren’t acceptable.”
The district will solicit community comments for the remainder of October, Nickels said, and reconvene the planning group in November before coming back to the board with a recommendation in early December.
“We’ll be going out to different groups … so that we have information about what recommendation is on the table,” Nickels said.
Nickels added that the district also will put out a community survey — scheduled to go live next week — to get its feedback on what aspects they like and what could be approached differently.
“We are not locked into anything,” Nickels said, noting that the survey that will help the group and board directors prioritize the bond.
The last time Sequim voters approved a bond was in 1996, to build the current Sequim Middle School and add buildings at Sequim High School.
From 2014-2016, the district in four bond proposals sought funding to replace Helen Haller, along with several improvements across the district, including upgrades of SHS’ science rooms. Those proposals included an April 2014 proposal for $154.3 million and proposals in February 2015 ($49.3 million), November 2015 ($49.3 million) and February 2016 ($54 million).
Since then, the district passed two capital projects levies, in 2017 to construct the district’s central kitchen and to demolish the remaining parts of the former Sequim Community School, and in 2021 to make a number of internal and external upgrades across the district campuses, including heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) upgrades, fire alarm and phone system replacements, gym floor and athletic track replacements, fiber optic installation and more.
That capital projects levy will sunset in December 2025.
Options
The first option includes building a new elementary school on the same property that holds Helen Haller Elementary. Helen Haller was constructed to house about 350 students in grades K-5; it currently houses about 530 students in grades 3-5.
Named for an elementary school principal (1949-1976), Helen Haller Elementary originally was built in the early 1970s as a grade 5-6 intermediate school. It was transformed into Sequim’s “new” elementary school with the addition of the satellite classrooms or pods in 1979.
“It’s at the end of [its] life,” Dale White said.
The first option also would see the replacement of five four-room “pods” at Sequim High School, including structures that house science and arts.
Besides the addition of the “H” building and cafeteria in the early 2000s, the last major remodel for the school was in 1972.
Students said those buildings — A, B, C, D and E pods — are “needed” classrooms, White said.
“They are the oldest buildings on the campus,” he said. “These are some of the strongest buildings that they need.”
The option also includes a bus loop that moves buses through a loop inside the main campus property, helping take more bus traffic off nearby streets.
“For safety’s sake, the bus loop … connects all three schools [on the main campus] to keep traffic off the nearby streets, and also keep the students off the streets in the area. From a safety perspective, this seemed like a slam dunk.”
Option 2 includes the elementary and high school projects, and it adds a rebuilding of the Sequim School District’s athletic stadium off West Fir Street.
An upgraded athletic facility would mean Sequim could host playoff games, planning group member Chris White said.
“Speaking with students and other people in the community, we wanted something that was a point of pride not just for students but for everyone around,” White said.
Option 3 includes projects from Option 2 and adds a new transportation center for the district’s fleet of buses as well as significant upgrades and additions at Greywolf Elementary School, including a dedicated cafeteria. Students at the grade K-2 school currently eat lunch at their desks.
Greywolf Elementary is 33 years old and is “starting to show wear and tear,” planning group member Erin Hiner told directors last Tuesday.
The third option helps reflow traffic at the school.
“It’s just not a safe situation right now,” she said.
Board director Michael Rocha, who serves on the facilities planning group, said “none of these are luxuries.”
“I’m not surprised by anything on the list,” board director Larry Jeffryes said, though he added he might want to see the district transportation center move up on the priority list.
Funding, timeline
Taxpayers within the Sequim School District boundaries — roughly R Corner to the west, Gardiner to the east and Olympic National Park to the south — currently pay about $1.30 per $1,000 of assessed property value for local schools: $0.87 per $1,000 for an educational programs and operations (EP&O) levy, and $0.43 per $1,000 in the third of four years of a capital projects levy that ends in 2025.
The planning group’s “Option 1” would cost about $114 million. For property owners, that would cost an estimated $0.71 per $1,000 of assessed value over 20 years.
“Option 2,” which adds the stadium upgrades, would cost about $123.8 million and cost an estimated $0.77 per $1,000 of assessed value in a similar 20-year time frame.
“Option 3” would cost taxpayers a little less than $146 million over 20 years, at about $0.91 per $1,000 of assessed value.
“Taxes are a heavy lift,” school board director Patrice Johnston said.
“At the end of the day, our job is to convince taxpayers that this is an investment they want to make.”
Sequim school board president Eric Pickens said this bond wouldn’t benefit just the students in Sequim schools now but for generations to come.
Johnston added that improved schools help draw people to the area.
“Think of the impact on people who want to come to this community,” Johnston said.
Cassie Hibbert, a senior project manager with Wenaha Group — the Federal Way-based company overseeing Sequim’s current capital projects levy and consulting with the district on the upcoming bond proposal — said providing details to taxpayers during this process is key.
“It is important that the community knows what they are buying,” Hibbert said.
The Sequim School board would look to make a final approval — or decline to pursue the bond — in early December, with a Dec. 13 deadline to get a measure on ballots for a special election on Feb. 11, 2025.
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Michael Dashiell is the editor of the Sequim Gazette of the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which also is composed of other Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum. Reach him at michael.dashiell@sequimgazette.com.
