MARYSVILLE — Students weren’t the only ones Tuesday who had their first day of school.
The Marysville Getchell High School campus also opened its doors to classes for the first time.
The $95.6 million campus welcomed roughly 1,500 students. The Marysville School District has about 12,000 students total.
Faculty at the new facility said there were few glitches.
“Too often in schools, we plan for the worst,” said Shawn Stevenson, principal at the Academy of Construction and Engineering. “It was really pretty smooth.”
Some people were worried students wouldn’t have enough parking, Stevenson said. That ended up being a moot point.
“We didn’t even sell out,” he said of the available parking spaces. “We’ve got extra.”
The facility remains under construction in some places. An outdoor track may be laid in the coming days, and most of the landscaping remains a work in progress. A connecting road with 88th Street NE also isn’t done.
The unique design of the campus meant that freshman students weren’t the only ones learning their way around, said Nancy Huus, head secretary at the Academy of Construction and Engineering.
The high school encompasses four small “schools,” such as the Bio-Med Academy and the Academy of Construction and Engineering. Each has its own building, separated from one another by outdoor walkways.
Students take most of their classes in three-story buildings devoted to their school. However, they go to gym in a centralized building, and can eat together in one large cafeteria.
Huus said the faculty still needs to get ahold of the school’s layout. Still, she thinks everyone is up to the challenge.
“I think it’s going to be fun here,” Huus said, “so long as we can keep the gum off the ground.”
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455; arathbun@heraldnet.com.
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