North Middle School to celebrate 100 years in Everett

EVERETT — If there’s one thing you can glean from looking at decades-old memorabilia from North Middle School, it’s that 13-year-olds have always been 13-year-olds.

On a hundred-year-old desk, students carved warplanes into the wood and stuck their gum underneath. In an old binder, a student wrote a list of names to keep track of who had a crush on who.

Jenny Overstreet, a teacher at the school and a self-described sentimental person with an interest in the past, has helped gather mementos from North Middle School’s history as part of its 100-year anniversary celebration the school is set to host Saturday.

“I feel personally very rooted in this community and really grateful that I grew up here,” she said.

The site where North Middle School currently sits was a fairground in the early 1900s. In 1925, North Junior High School opened there. It was rebuilt in the late 1970s and reopened in 1981 as a middle school. In 2016, Everett voters approved a $150 million bond to renovate the middle school again, which also paid for a new elementary school, new athletic fields and new portable classrooms across the district. North Middle School’s renovation cost $50 million, reopened to students in 2019 and was fully complete in spring 2020.

On Saturday, the middle school at 2514 Rainier Ave. in Everett will open to the community from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to honor the 100th anniversary of the school’s opening.

“It’s a gift from the community,” North Middle School Principal Tyler Ream said of the renovated North Middle School. “We felt like we really wanted to open it up and say, ‘You built us this amazing school, and we want you to see it from the inside and honor the 100 years that went before us.’”

Staff plan to display the past, present and future of the school, showcasing memorabilia like historical photos, old yearbooks and a nearly 70-year-old track uniform the grandson-in-law of a former student recently returned to the school. Current students will showcase programs like language classes, the robotics team and a 3D printing lab.

Overstreet has taught at Everett Public Schools for more than three decades. Her children attend North Middle School and she would have as well, if it hadn’t been under construction when she was a middle schooler. After having spent most of her career as an elementary school teacher, she started teaching at North Middle School nine years ago.

Middle schools teach children at a unique, tumultuous period during their adolescence. It can be hard work, but it’s also an honor to be with the students during that time in their life, Overstreet said. As the students look back at the photos and memories from years past at North Middle School, she hopes they’ll get a better understanding of where they came from and give them perspective as to where they’re going. After all, everyone was a 13-year-old at some point.

“I try to portray to the kids in my class — middle schoolers who notoriously live in the moment only — the fact that these people that came before them were just like them. They stuck their gum under their desk and carved in it too,” Overstreet said. “Not that we want them to do that, just that these aren’t just random strangers. They came before them.”

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke