Mount Si High School | |
---|---|
Address | |
![]() | |
8651 Meadowbrook Way Southeast , 98065 United States | |
Coordinates | 47°31′24″N121°48′56″W / 47.523272°N 121.815467°W |
Information | |
Type | Public High School |
School district | Snoqualmie Valley School District |
Principal | Deb Hay [1] |
Staff | 100.82 (on an FTE basis) [2] |
Grades | 9-12 |
Enrollment | 2,172 (2023–2024) [2] |
Student to teacher ratio | 21.54 [2] |
Color(s) | Scarlet and Grey |
Mascot | Wildcat |
Rival | Skyline High School [3] |
Website | School website |
Mount Si High School is a high school located in the Snoqualmie Valley in Snoqualmie, Washington and is a part of the Snoqualmie Valley School District.
According to the Seattle Times, Mount Si High School was founded as early as 1944, during World War II. [4] The war affected the school, as six students died fighting in this war; then principal Miller B Stewart, who was also their Boy Scout scoutmaster, said "They were all good boys." [4] Students in the school were praised for working to raise money for the war effort. [5] Later graduates also served as leaders in the military in the 1990s. [6] The Mount Si High School class of 1966 built a memorial for their classmates killed in action. [7]
In the 1940s, Mount Si High School had between fifty-five and sixty-five students graduate every year. [8] [9] In 1952, the Snoqualmie School District allocated money to construct a new building for Mount Si High School. [10]
Mount Si High School was used as a filming location in the television series Twin Peaks . [11] After the filming of Twin Peaks, Mount Si High School completed the building of a new campus and demolished the old one, starting in 2015. [12] The new campus opened on September 7, 2019. [13] [14] [15] The new campus has seven buildings, some three stories, with greenhouses on top. [15] It now houses up to 2,300 students, has a 400-car garage, and includes many security features (including few entry points and a secure check procedure before visitors are allowed in). [15] Several food spaces exist, with some run by students in training. [15] The new gym has two levels and bleachers for up to 2,400 people. [16] [17] As the school is on a flood plain, the school is "raised off of the ground on a platform above the 100-year flood level" and on 4,800 stone columns beneath the surface to stabilize the soil; this provides additional space for parking below the building. [18] Two Rivers High School combined with Mount Si in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. [19] Some aspects of the school were completed later, including the baseball/softball fields in February 2020 and the new Performing Arts Center (PAC) in January 2021. A parking/bus loop area was completed in April 2021. [14]
In 2005, a task force recommended the construction of new school buildings. [20] However, voters defeated all the bond referendums. As a result, administrators asked voters for less, $30 million "to purchase modular classrooms and address some maintenance issues." [20] That bond passed and modular classrooms did help, but Superintendent Joel Aune still advocated for a new building, claiming that the high school, built in the 1950s, had a “cobbled-together appearance, atrocious traffic flow, and was not education-friendly." [20] The middle school was not as crowded, so administrators decided to use $3 million the district had set aside for infrastructure improvements to convert it into a freshman-only campus. “But we weren’t going to simply move 500 freshman and 25 teachers across the street and basically do things the same way we had always done them,” Aune said. [20] “We took advantage of the opportunity to shift the way instruction is delivered. We wanted to make it much more personal and student-centered, so we invested heavily in tech and have created learning communities, where smaller groups of teachers and students work together collaboratively.” He said the school had a “unique design that was a wonderful fit for what we’re trying to do philosophically with the freshmen.” The program is now being emulated elsewhere in the district. [20]
From 2012 to 2013, Mount Si High School opened a freshmen-only campus to solve overcrowding, adding an estimated $750,000 annually to future SVSD budgets while utilizing current district buildings. This was the result of an SVSD school board re-examination of the high school that had taken over 6 months. [21] The population of the Snoqualmie school has been increasing, leaping 14% in 2005 and 2006, and growing about 3% per year after from 2006 to 2016 due to families moving to technology hubs in Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond. [20]
Mount Si High School has received several honors for overall and academic achievement:
Research on Mount Si High School has been conducted by education scholars since the 1960s, including research on its "innovative uses of social media," [43] Competition and state-validated student films, [44] the "identification of employability skills," [45] and the identification of CTE employable skills within the student body, [46] the teaching of American history, [47] and the teaching of journalism. [48]
In 2008, Mount Si High School was involved in a controversy over a visit by Reverend Ken Hutcherson, who was invited to speak about his experience growing up with racism. Some called into question his dedication to equality for all people in light of his opposition to same-sex relationships, because of his calling the school's GSA alliance a “sex club”. One librarian received an email from Hutcherson, and was asked if she “wanted to be added to the list of Mount Si teachers he was pushing to have fired.” [49] Hutcherson had reportedly said in an interview: “I guarantee you, my brother, you can say whatever you want about Martin Luther King, but he was not fighting for people’s rights in the bedroom. Do not go down that road with me. If you go down that road with me, you’re gonna get a fight.” [50] Hutcherson then used money from his nonprofit "to fight against a $56 million bond measure that would have helped repair Mount Si High School's decaying floors, installed wheelchair accessible ramps in the school's portables, and fixed other buildings in the district (while also paying for construction of a new middle school)." [51] In November 2009, a freshman attending Mount Si High School was attacked by another student in a locker room after defending another student against anti-gay slurs. [52] [53] [54] [55]
On January 7, 2011, a former student and an accomplice entered school premises in an attempted burglary, causing US$30,000 in damages (equivalent to $41,000in 2023) . The offenders stole $2,000 in cash and checks (equivalent to $3,000in 2023), as well as a 22-inch (56 cm) television and Xbox 360 system from the ASB student lounge. Both men were then booked into King County Jail on suspicion of second-degree burglary, first degree theft, and malicious mischief. [56]
On February 12, 2015, a student was arrested for allegedly having "inappropriate photos of others" on his electronic devices and sharing them online with social media. Principal John Belcher released a statement urging students with information to come forward, in addition to anyone else who had been victimized. The Snoqualmie Police Department conducted the investigation with the help of Washington State Patrol's Missing and Exploited Children Task Force. Prosecutors considered charging the student with cyber-bullying and possession of child pornography, but no further details have been released. [57]
During 2015 and 2016, an online "March Madness-esque" bracket was created not about basketball, but about women. The event was nicknamed the "Hot girl contest" by the student population, where online participants voted on the head-to-head match ups of female students, with the winner moving to the next round. Before being shut down by the school administration, the event received mixed reviews, when the school's gender equality group wore t-shirts in an effort to stop the contest that they said was degrading to female students. Other students said the game was just harmless fun. [58] Administrative consequences in 2015 started effect on Friday, May 8, with consequences including not participating in post-season athletics, prom or graduation ceremonies. [59] Two years later in March 2018 a 16-year-old girl was assaulted near campus, prompting a school lockdown and early dismissal. [60]
In February 2020, an image resurfaced of Principal Belcher at the end of school year car show giving a shaka sign in front of a truck with multiple Confederate flags displayed. [61] As MSHS is a 4a school with very low demographic of students of color, this raised concerns in administration, students and families about that historical connotation. [62] Belcher addressed the concerns through the Snoqualmie Valley Record, expressing in his response that he "[takes] this work to heart and will do all I can do to find equality and justice every day at Mount Si High School." [63] [64] He was later re-hired by the Cle Elum-Roslyn High School as Superintendent around May 25, 2022, and stated that Cle Elum was "On the brink of major growth, changing demands and voices on the system, and a need for what I anticipate will be expansion of the district." [65] With Belcher's resignation, Deb Hay of Lake Stevens High School took his place. [66]
On May 5, 2020, a student died on Mount Si High School premises due to an overdose on fentanyl-laced drugs. This caused an overturn of the school counselors, psychologists and incited the hire of the school's full-time mental health therapist from Friends of Youth. [67]
King County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 12th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the state's most populous city.
Fall City is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in King County, Washington, United States, 25 miles (40 km) east of Seattle. The community lies along the Snoqualmie River and Raging River. The population was 2,032 at the 2020 census.
North Bend is a town in King County, Washington, United States, on the outskirts of the Seattle metropolitan area. The population was 7,461 at the 2020 census. The town is 30 miles (48 km) east of Seattle on Interstate 90 and lies in the foothills of the Cascade Range near Snoqualmie Pass.
Cle Elum is a city in Kittitas County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,157 at the 2020 census. About 84 miles (135 km) by car from Seattle, Cle Elum is a popular area for camping and outdoor activities. It is also unofficially considered the starting point of Eastern Washington when driving east on I-90 from Seattle, although this is somewhat arbitrary since many consider either the town of Easton, anywhere east of Keechelus Lake, or the wildlife crossing bridge over I-90 to be the starting point.
Monroe is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Skykomish, Snohomish, and Snoqualmie rivers near the Cascade foothills, about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Seattle. Monroe's population was 19,699 as of the 2020 census.
Mount Si is a mountain in the northwest United States, east of Seattle, Washington. It lies on the western margin of the Cascade Range just above the coastal plains around Puget Sound, and towers over the nearby town of North Bend. Mount Si and neighboring mountain Little Si were named after local homesteader Josiah "Uncle Si" Merritt. The mountain became nationally familiar in the early 1990s with the television series Twin Peaks, which was filmed in North Bend.
Valencia High School is a public secondary school located in the neighborhood of Valencia in the city of Santa Clarita, California, United States. It is a part of the William S. Hart Union High School District.
Woodrow Wilson High School, commonly known locally in short as Woodrow, is a public high school located in East Dallas, Texas (U.S.). Woodrow enrolls students in grades 9–12 and is a part of the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). It is located adjacent to the Junius Heights historic district.
Scott Olson is an American guitarist, bassist, music producer and recording engineer. He played guitar with Heart between 1995 and 1998 and between 2002 and 2003, and in 1996 he performed with Alice In Chains on their MTV Unplugged concert. Olson was a recording consultant for Cameron Crowe's 2000 film Almost Famous. He performed with Alice in Chains again on February 18, 2005, during a benefit concert in Seattle for the victims of the 2004 tsunami disaster, and joined the band one more time to perform the song "No Excuses" at their concert in Washington, D.C., on October 25, 2006.
Mariner High School is a public high school located in unincorporated Snohomish County, Washington, United States, just south of Everett. It opened on September 8, 1970, as the only high school serving the Mukilteo School District; it held this title until Kamiak High School opened in 1993. It currently serves grades 9 through 12.
Dwight David Eisenhower High School is located in Yakima, Washington, United States. It is named after U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is one of five high schools in the Yakima School District, the others being Davis High School, Stanton Academy, Yakima Online, and Yakima Valley Technical Skills Center (YV-Tech). Students and community members often refer to the school as "Ike."
Interstate 90 (I-90), designated as the American Veterans Memorial Highway, is a transcontinental Interstate Highway that runs from Seattle, Washington, to Boston, Massachusetts. It crosses Washington state from west to east, traveling 298 miles (480 km) from Seattle across the Cascade Mountains and into Eastern Washington, reaching the Idaho state line east of Spokane. I-90 intersects several of the state's other major highways, including I-5 in Seattle, I-82 and U.S. Route 97 (US 97) near Ellensburg, and US 395 and US 2 in Spokane.
Rainier Beach High School is a public secondary school in the Seattle Public Schools system. It is located in the Rainier Beach area, in the southeastern part of the city of Seattle, Washington, United States. The school historically has had a strong emphasis on team sports, and many championship teams. The building has a capacity of 1,200 students, but enrollment has declined greatly in recent years. In 2006, 1,302 of the 1,600 high school students living in the Rainier Beach neighborhood traveled out of the area each morning to attend other high schools. In 2008–09, Rainier Beach began the year with 453 students and ended with about 295, giving an average monthly enrollment of 374. Sixty students chose it as their first choice. In 2013 the school began offering an International Baccalaureate program.
The Snoqualmie Valley School District is located in King County, Washington about 40 miles (64 km) from Seattle at the foothills of Snoqualmie Pass. It encompasses over 400 square miles (1,000 km2), making it geographically one of the largest school districts in Washington state. The district has an enrollment of approximately 7,200 students.
Milwaukee Ski Bowl was an alpine ski area in the northwest United States in Washington, which operated between 1937 and 1950. It was southeast of Seattle in the Cascade Range at Hyak, on the east side of Snoqualmie Pass.
The Seamount Athletic League was an interscholastic high school league in Western Washington.
Mark Douglas Mullet is an American businessman and politician of the Democratic Party. A moderate, he is a member of the Washington State Senate, representing the 5th Legislative District.
Nicole Leslie Stanton is an American professional soccer player who plays as a midfielder for Vancouver Rise FC of the Northern Super League.
The Marrowstone Music Festival is an orchestral training program that takes place in the Pacific Northwest. The program is targeted at high school and college students, around 200 of which play in the program annually.
Trevor Lane is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He was drafted by the New York Yankees in the 10th round of the 2016 MLB Draft, but never played in Major League Baseball after playing parts of six seasons in the Yankees organization.