Community Education

School district task force recommends replacing Peninsula, Gig Harbor high schools

A Peninsula School District task force recommends building new facilities to replace Peninsula and Gig Harbor high schools, as well as the district bus barn. 

The Capital Bond Planning Task Force presented its recommendation to the Peninsula School Board on Tuesday, Oct. 27. The proposal also calls for a new, shared district stadium on neutral ground, new aquatics facilities and new performing arts centers, among other things.

The price tag: About $800 million, paid for with a 20-year bond. 

A slide from the task force’s presentation to the school board shows the condition of a science classroom at Peninsula High vs. one at the brand-new Bethel High.

That number gave some board members pause. 

“I’m just a little … $800 million. That’s just a big number,” board member Chuck West said at the meeting. “It takes me a little while to digest.” 

Voters inside school district boundaries would need to approve the bond request. School Board President Natalie Wimberley asked Superintendent Krestin Bahr to prepare a resolution sending a request to voters.

“The truth is, there’s one way to build schools in the state of Washington, and that is through capital funding,” Wimberley said at Tuesday’s meeting. “Whether it’s through a levy, which would be like building a house on a credit card, or through a bond. So the only way you can do that is to have the school board run one.” 

The district appears to have done some ground work already, purchasing 27 acres near Peninsula High in a series of transactions since 2024. District officials at the time were vague about their plans for the properties, referring only to “future school programming” and “strategic” purposes for buying the land.

Aging buildings

Peninsula School District formed the Capital Bond Planning Task Force in March 2024 to examine facilities needs and address whether a future bond would be necessary. On Tuesday, task force members described what they found. 

Three district buildings are in the worst shape: The two big high schools and the bus barn.

Capital Bond Planning Task Force Recommendations by vince.dice

The high schools have leaky roofs, malfunctioning mechanical systems and classrooms that don’t meet modern security standards. Science labs and career and technical education spaces are insufficient. Amenities like performing arts spaces and pools don’t measure up to surrounding districts. 

The buildings are just plain old. The main Peninsula High building was built in 1946, while Gig Harbor High went up in 1978. The 56-year-old bus barn can almost collect Social Security.

“The question isn’t about how old a building is or a facility is,” Chief of Schools Michael Farmer said in presenting the task force report. “It’s about whether they can serve the student safely and reliably and provide the education opportunities they need for the future.” 

Re-using existing facilities vs. building new ones

Task force members considered whether re-using existing buildings would be more cost-effective than building new ones. They determined it wouldn’t.

The capital facilities discussion starts at about the 46 minute, 50 second mark of this school board meeting.

The lowest price tag the task force could come up with by re-using the old buildings was around $715 million. That scenario involved building only one pool and one performing arts center for Peninsula and Gig Harbor to share. 

“What we discovered in diving into all this was that reusing a building does not necessarily save the money that we initially thought it would,” task force member Jonathan Appleton told the board. “It can actually extend construction timelines, it can create distractions for the students that are trying to learn in the middle of a construction environment, and you can only modernize a building so many times before eventually a replacement is needed.” 

The task force also considered a maximum price of about $900 million before settling in the middle of the two extremes. 

The task force presented information showing that Peninsula School District’s total tax rate in 2026 is second-lowest among all districts in Pierce and Thurston counties. Only Yelm is lower — and that district is at risk of dissolution for financial insolvency. 

If voters approved an $800 million bond, Peninsula would likely be about in the middle of Pierce and Thurston county districts for total school tax rate, at $3.52 per $1,000 of assessed property value. The increase would cost the owner of a $500,000 home an estimated $67 per month and the owner of a $950,000 home about $127 per month, according to the report.

Existing facilities at Peninsula and Gig Harbor high schools are not up to snuff, the task force told the school board.

Shared stadium

Along with the two high schools and the bus facility, the task force recommended a new district sports stadium. 

Farmer told the school board that the task force unanimously recommended an “appropriately sized, shared district stadium.” The stadium would be at a neutral location, one not “owned” by either school. 

The football, soccer and track teams from both schools currently play home games and matches at Roy Anderson Field. Roy Anderson is on the Peninsula High campus. 

The school district moved Fish Bowl, the annual rivalry football game between Gig Harbor and Peninsula, to Mount Tahoma Stadium in Tacoma in 2024 after determining that Roy Anderson isn’t big enough for the big game. It’s been played there ever since. 

Mount Tahoma has seating capacity for 5,000 spectators, which is the same size the task force recommends Peninsula School District build. 

Other key facilities

New pools and upgraded performing arts facilities at both Peninsula and Gig Harbor also are a priority for task force members.

They toured several new high schools in the region while researching their report. Those included Bethel High, which opened this fall as part of a $443 million suite of bond-funded projects; and Central Kitsap High School, which opened in 2019 following a $186 million renovation to the campus it shares with a middle school.

The task force told the school board members that improved performing arts facilities should be a priority.

Task force members “identified performing arts as one of the most significant gaps” between those newer schools and Peninsula’s aging facilities, Farmer said. Members also noted that new performing arts spaces could be used by community groups. 

Task force leaders acknowledged that the $800 million price tag might cause some sticker shock. The district’s 2019 bond, focused on elementary and middle schools, was for just less than $200 million.

“The time has come for us to replace our high schools,” Appleton told the school board. “There’s a lot of different financial considerations you guys have to think of … but how much we invest in our schools is a reflection of how much we invest in our students. So now is the time for our community to step up.”