High school in Snoqualmie, Washington
8651 Meadowbrook Way SE, Snoqualmie, WA 98065
(425) 831-8100
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.
Mount Si High School was founded as early as 1944, during World War II. The war affected the school, as six students died fighting in this war; then principal Miller B Stewart, who was also their boy scout master said, "They were all good boys." Students in the school were praised for working to raise money for the war effort. Later graduates also served as leaders in the military in the 1990s. The Mount Si High School class of 1966 built a memorial for their classmates killed in action.
In the 1940s, Mount Si High School had between fifty-five and sixty-five students graduate every year.
In 1952, the Snoqualmie School District allocated money to construct a new building for Mount Si High School.
Mount Si High School is building a new campus, started in 2015, and is on schedule to complete it in 2019. The new campus will house up to 2,300 students, have a 400-car garage, and include many security features (including few entry points and a secure check procedure before visitors are allowed in). The new gym will have two levels and bleachers for up to 2,400 people.
In 2013, Mount Si High School opened a freshmen-only campus to solve overcrowding. 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. Therefore, in 2005, a task force recommended the construction of new school buildings. 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." 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."
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. "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.
I have two teens in school at Mount Si.
I really love the culture there, and their care for students. My kids are learning both academically and socially, and as part of their instruction they learn life skills such as personal finance and healthy living that will help them as they mature. The band and choir programs are top notch too, and are a big part of the kids' lives and learning.
Mount Si High School has served our two children well.
We are grateful for the many people that dedicate their time and energy into the many forever-changing facets of education, activities and organizations to create a most-desirable environment in which to learn, exercise interests and support one another.
