Bertschi’s existing campus (Image: Miller Hull)

The private Bertschi School on northern Capitol Hill is in planning for a campus renovation and addition of a new three-story schoolhouse as it continues to grow along 10th Ave E. Construction is still a few years off.

“We want our spaces to reflect the joyfulness of our kids,” head of school Raymond Yu tells CHS.

As a new school year begins, Seattle families in the public school system are awaiting a delayed roster of planned campus closures the district says are necessary to stem budget woes. In the meantime, there is a new $14.5 million plan focused on intervention, mental health, and “school-based safety specialists” to address concerns about increase gun violence among young perpetrators.

But, despite the worries around the budget challenges faced by the district, Seattle Public Schools is also investing in the area. With long-term projections show continued demand for  education in Central Seattle, SPS is overhauling and expanding its Montlake Elementary campus as a centerpiece in the system.

At Bertschi, the school, which opened as a single pre-kindergarten class in 1975 has grown to an enrollment of 244 students from pre-K through grade 5. School officials say the renovation is not driven by a plan to expand enrollment, though admit it will grow the student body by 22 students.

The renovations grew out of the school’s overall strategic plan with an eye toward new high-quality classrooms, said Yu.

(Image: Miller Hull)

One of the existing buildings, called the annex, will be remodeled to make space for a new pre-K classroom. Currently, the school has one pre-k class, and that will expand to two with the renovation. That new group of Pre-K students is what accounts for the student population growth. The school already has two Kindergarten classes, so the addition will not create a demand for more expansion in future years, Yu said.

With the renovation, both of the pre-K classrooms will be housed in the same building. The school is excited about allowing them to be adjacent so teachers and students can be closer together, Yu said.

The school says it hopes neighborhood residents won’t notice much change as a result of the remodel part of the plan. But demolition and construction will make for disruptions.

The current building, which Bertschi calls “The Schoolhouse” sits just south of the church, which is also part of campus – it’s no longer a church and now houses the school’s third, fourth and fifth grades.

After the schoolhouse is demolished, in its place will rise a three-story “New Schoolhouse.” The Schoolhouse will house first, second and third grades, kindergarten, first and second grades along with space for Spanish, extended day programs, the school’s main office and a new teachers lounge.

Yu is excited about the building, noting it will have more open, light-filled rooms which should be a boon to students and teachers alike.

Yu stressed Bertschi’s commitment to sustainability. Toward that end, the new building will have mechanical and ventilation systems which will be more energy efficient, and solar panels on the roof.

The campus added a green Living Science Building a decade ago.

The school also plans to incorporate more accessibility into the designs to accommodate all students and faculty better.

Yu said the Seattle Public Schools plan to close a number of schools across the city has not impacted Bertschi. The district has yet to announce publicly which schools will be shuttered, though some Capitol Hill-area schools may be on the chopping block.

This summer, the district delayed the release of a roster of planned cuts to focus, it said, on planning around reducing concerns around gun violence.

District superintendent Brent Jones said the shutdown process would be delayed until September with a plan for the board to vote on the “well-resourced schools” plan “before winter break in December 2024.”

The move delayed what is expected to be a painful step as SPS rolls out a plan to shutter 20 elementary campuses across the city to address budget woes and, the district says, establish “a new foundation of stability and consistency that our students and staff need to thrive.”

A looming budget deficit had SPS promising no closures until 2024 but predicting serious belt-tightening as it expects a decade of lower enrollment. Changes in state funding and a forecast for a continued near-term drop in enrollment had the district scrambling to cover a $131 million budget deficit for the current school year with continued financial shortfalls on the way.

SPS last went through rounds of campus closures a decade ago that included cuts for Capitol Hill and Central District communities. CHS reported here in 2013 as plans began moving forward to reopen Capitol Hill’s Meany Middle School campus after it had been shuttered during a round of economic belt tightening.

In previous cutbacks, the district closed schools but kept campuses busy by shifting programs or leasing the properties to private and charter schools. By 2016, the district was reopening its shuttered or repurposed Capitol Hill and Central District area campuses. During the shuffling a decade ago, private schools like Hamlin Robinson leased facilities like E Union’s TT Minor campus until the district said it needed the properties back.

The district has not yet presented specifics on the expected costs savings presented by specific campus shutdowns.

(Image: Bertschi School)

The district said the “school consolidations” would be in place for the 2025-26 school year.

Yu said it’s too early in the enrollment calendar to know if the closures, or the threat of them, will result in increased demand at the local private schools.

At least a few neighbors are unhappy about Bertschi’s proposed changes. Some public comments left on the city’s website point out that parking and traffic are already an issue with the school. They single out times for pickup and drop-off of students causing issues on 10th.

Yu acknowledged the issues, and said the school has been working to mitigate them. And he said they’ve got a system of greeting students which tries to keep the cars moving along 10th Avenue East. While the student body is too spread out across the area to make a bus viable, the school encourages carpooling. They also ask families to take alternate routes around the school, to help spread the traffic around instead of it focusing on a few roads.

The area is also home to the private, Catholic, Jesuit Seattle Prep high school which has continued to thrive as part of a wave of private school development and growth on the Hill.

Bertschi has asked teachers to park farther from campus, so the immediate area doesn’t bear the entire parking burden.

The project is now winding its way through the city’s approval and permitting process. Current plans, Yu said, are to start construction in 2026, just after the end of the school year. They hope to complete construction by the fall of 2027.

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