As it completes a new high school in Bothell, Cedar Park Christian Schools also is planning to move its Everett campus to Mill Creek.
The growing parochial school system, a ministry of Cedar Park Assembly of God in Bothell, bought land in Mill Creek last fall for $4.1 million and hopes to have a modular building up in time for the 2005-06 school year.
Cedar Park Christian Schools’ Everett campus currently leases space at Christian Faith Center, which plans to start its own school next fall.
Students at Cedar Park look forward to the “new faces and new carpet” their own building may bring, said sophomore Michan Harper, 16.
“It will be a nice change, having our own building,” agreed classmate Katie McNeal, 15.
Enrollment has nearly doubled, to 320 students, since Cedar Park took over the former Northwest Christian School in 2002. Next year it will graduate its first seniors under the Cedar Park name, about six students.
The new school building could include up to 40 classrooms and a large gymnasium, as well as space for a church sanctuary.
Canyon Creek Church, a branch of Cedar Park Assembly of God, would likely share the new building. The church currently meets at nearby Heatherwood Middle School. Under the plan, Canyon Creek also would help fund the school.
Superintendent Clint Behrends estimates it will cost as much as $8 million to build the school. Cedar Park church has secured a loan, he said.
But even with the land and money in place, a fall opening may be beyond reach. Cedar Park church has yet to submit a development application to the city of Mill Creek.
School leaders are seeking other places to rent next fall as a backup, and may also consider busing high school students to the Bothell campus.
There, construction of a $9 million high school is six months behind schedule. Behrends blames red tape from the city. He hopes they can move in within the month after inspections.
Teenagers now take many classes in Cedar Park church’s sanctuary. The church, elementary and middle school buildings and new high school all are on the same campus.
The state of building projects is just the latest mark of growth for Cedar Park Christian Schools, the second-largest private school system operating in the area after local Catholic schools.
Formed in 1982 in Bothell with eight preschool students, the system has since expanded to five campuses of about 1,700 students.
Most of that growth has come through acquiring other Christian schools, including the former Langley Christian School on Whidbey Island last year.
At the Everett campus, the transition from one church umbrella to another was smooth, said Stacey Casterline, a Bible teacher who taught at the former Northwest Christian School for three years before the Cedar Park takeover. All of the former school’s teachers were rehired.
“It was like a family and it stayed that way; it just got bigger,” Casterline said.
The teacher now looks forward to having upgraded computer wiring and a phone in her classroom when the new school is built.
Cedar Park Christian Schools also is in talks with two other Christian schools “up north,” which could expand its reach farther as soon as next year, the superintendent said.
The expansions fit the mission of Cedar Park church, which itself has expanded with six branch churches, as well as a thrift store and burial site, Behrends said.
“Our goal is to be involved in peoples’ lives wherever they are,” he said. “We feel that we’ve been blessed” in that work.
The school’s property is located on Bothell-Everett Highway just north of the Dumas Road/136th Street SE intersection. When it opens, it will become the first religious school within Mill Creek’s borders. Archbishop Murphy High School is located to the northeast of the city limits.
Melissa Slager is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.
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