The local effort by school and local business leaders to secure funding for a vocational facility in Sequim got a boost in mid-December, thanks to the interest and foresight of Albert Haller.
Board members with the Albert Haller Foundation on Dec. 14 agreed to pledge $40,000 in funding toward construction of a Career Technical Education facility.
School administrators and business entities such as Sequim Sunrise Rotary and Clallam Economic Development Council are looking to raise $1 million in local funds to show community interest as they work with State Senator Lisa Wellman to bring a proposed $15 million vocational center to the main Sequim High School campus.
In a December press release, foundation board members commented on the scarcity of qualified service workers in vocational fields such as building construction, manufacturing and health care, and that “Albert Haller would surely have supported this proposal.”
The Albert Haller Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed in 1992 to help fund charitable programs throughout Clallam County, primarily focused on education, family and medical services, annually gives six-figure donations to local community groups and efforts.
In the near three decades of giving, the foundation has donated about $10 million.
A five-member board — one that includes superintendents from Sequim and Port Angeles school districts — oversees the foundation’s funds that started with about $9.2 million from Haller’s estate in 1992.
Born in Port Angeles in 1903 to Sequim Valley pioneers Max and Anna Haller, Albert Haller was a longtime logger who with his wife Anna were at one time the largest independent land owners in Clallam County.
In 1989 he proposed the charitable foundation, and tow years later, it formed. He died in 1992.
(Learn more at alberthallerfoundation.org.)
Board directors on Dec. 14 also voted to donation $20,000 to the Port Angeles Food Bank, which has recently lost a major contributor.
About the CTE facility
Wellman, who represents 41st Legislative District (Mercer Island, Bellevue, Newcastle and parts of Issaquah, Sammamish and Renton), and is chair of the Senate Committee on Early Learning and K-12 Education. She visited the Sequim School District for a vocational forum, tour and meet-and greet in July 2022, and expressed interest in pursuing construction of a vocational facility that also helps the community to be prepared for emergencies.
Ned Floeter, director of Sequim School District’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes, said Wellman expressed interest in the venture but wanted to see $1 million in community support.
“She [Wellman] is making this a primary issue for her in this next legislative session,” noted EDC executive director Colleen McAleer at a CTE general advisory committee meeting in October.
The proposed vocational facility and emergency shelter would be 100 feet by 200 feet, with three “open bays” of 40 feet-by-100 feet, along with two fully resourced classrooms, restrooms and showers, and a full, restaurant-grade kitchen.
“It would have a large capacity to do a variety of things,” Floeter said in a video describing the project (youtube.com/watch?v=p8WeZ3X09cE).
It would also have industrial grade access to water, power and air, he said.
“This building’s primary activity would be to support the various CTE programs that are currently housed in under-performing classrooms.”
Floeter said the school district could partner with Peninsula College to develop an after-hours program/campus for the college at the vocational site.
The secondary purpose of the facility, Floeter noted, would be an emergency/crisis management center, with other possible uses being large community events.
Having the facility open to use as an emergency center can help get federal funding down the line, he said.
The proposed site would be on the district’s northeast corner at North Sequim Avenue and West Hendrickson Road.
CTE offerings at SHS, SMS
Sequim School District offers about three-dozen Career and Technical Education courses, primarily at the high school level. Courses include everything from culinary services and woodworking to robotics and computer science, biomedical science, automotive and welding services, animal science and veterinary assistant, computer science, agriculture, video game design and more.
Several high school course programs earn students dual credits at Peninsula College, Olympic College and Yakima Valley College.
About 1,000 Sequim students are enrolled in at least one CTE course, Floeter said.
The district added two CTE programs at Sequim Middle School and recruited more students at Sequim High School, with the result a 44 full-time equivalent increase this year over the 2021-22 school year.
In full-time equivalent terms, Sequim High has 228 CTE students to start the 2022-23 academic year, up from 214 in the fall of 2021-22, while the middle school has 45 FTEs, up from 15 in the fall of 2021-22.
CTE courses receive a higher-than-normal apportionment from the state.
Sequim High School’s converted home ec building that’s about 50 years old, Floeter said, that doesn’t have appropriate plumbing, venting or electrical capacity to sustain the refrigeration, stoves and drainage systems for industry-grade teaching. The school’s agriculture science classes are held in portables that are being outgrown, and computer science classrooms have leaky roofs.
“Our systems are so antiquated they cannot support the new equipment we are putting into those classrooms that are industry grade,” he said.
“The work-around is to develop a building that is literally designed to meet CTE requirements and is sustainable over time through the resourcing that CTE receives annually.”
Editor’s note: Terry Ward, Vice President of Sound Publishing and publisher of region enwspaper including the Sequim Gazette, Peninsula Daily News and Forks Forum, is board preisdent of the Clallam Economic Development Council. — MD
