Students and staff return to a modern Satsop School

Published 1:30 am Monday, January 5, 2026

A paved parking lot, refinished original wood flooring, a repainted bell, and new coats of paint in the classrooms awaited Satsop students and staff when they returned to the Satsop School on Monday.

The students’ reaction: “They were all so excited!” Sarah Protheroe, the fourth- through sixth-grade teacher and leader of the restoration project, shared via email. “The bell is a pretty big deal for the older kiddos because they get to ring it. We just did a lesson for them on how to ring it. I would say the biggest reaction was to the library. Everyone gasped when they saw it!”

After spending the first half of the 2025-2026 school year at the Satsop Business Park, they are now back at the beloved school that has been modernized without losing its historic touches.

In 2024, Satsop School received $6 million in grant funding through the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Small School District Modernization Grant. Satsop School met the grant criteria of having an enrollment of less than 1,000 students and not having a tax base that could fund the needed upgrades.

Rock Project Management Services served as the project manager for the modernization project. Bassetti Architects led the design work and Christiansen General Contractors being awarded the construction contract. They broke ground on the project on June 11, 2025. Because the remodel wouldn’t be completed before the start of the school year, the school was temporarily relocated to the Satsop Business Park.

After a century and two decades, the interior of the school captures the legacy of who has sat and taught in the classrooms. Protheroe said that one of the most interesting things are the names written inside the belfry.

“It was a tradition at one point that students used to sign their name up there [in the belfry] and then the tradition kind of morphed into retirees would sign their name up there …” said Protheroe. “It’s quite the adventure to get up there. You have to crawl on your hands and knees and go through tight spaces, but it’s pretty cool once you get up there. There’s a lot of history and a lot of last names that you’ll see sprinkled on town registries and property plots.”

And in the basement, they found old desks that Protheroe estimates date back to the 1930s.

In the classrooms for the second and third, and fourth through sixth grades, the carpet was removed, exposing original wood floors that were refinished. In one of these classrooms, there are burn marks on the floor, indicating that’s where the fireplace used to be. The chimney was removed and School Superintendent and Principal Tiffany Osgood said that the bricks were salvaged and will be used elsewhere.

The walls were also repainted and new vintage replica lighting fixtures installed. By reorienting the conference room, space could be made for a dedicated special education classroom, which Osgood said that Kaytee Baxter, their special education teacher, was excited to have.

“When I first started, almost 20 years ago, special education students, if they were being pulled out to have some individual time, worked in the school office where the business manager was working, and so it was a shared space with no privacy,” Osgood said.

New is an enclosed gym that is connected to the current multi-purpose room.

“This is amazing because having a gym and cafeteria in the same space made it hard to do PE without putting all the tables up and everything,” said Osgood. “Now we can have a designated lunch space and a designated gym space.”

The cafeteria received a fresh coat of paint, new lights, and more importantly, new restrooms. Until now, there had never been running water in the building because it was grandfathered in.

In the library, shelves were sanded and stained; on Friday, all the books were shelved and ready for checkout.

“The teachers brought their classroom library collection of books but on a small scale, and we didn’t have our library up [at the temporary school],” Osgood said. “So the kids are really itching to get back into our school library.”

A new design element in the library is an accent wall of exposed wood that previously had been an exterior wall of the original building. It’s unknown when it had been covered with the paneling that was torn down during the remodeling.

“We just happened to be on a walk through that day and noticed that it was beautiful,” Osgood said. “We wanted to honor that history so now it’s an accent wall for us.”

Protheroe, along with her father and J Rosenbach, restored the historic bell that was manufactured by CS Bell out of Hillsboro, Ohio; over the decades, it had accumulated rust. She connected with a group who advises on how to preserve these bells and followed their instructions. Along with the restored bell, there is a new bell rope.

“We found somebody who makes ropes for ship bells, like navy bells,” Protheroe said. “We contacted him and told him what we needed, and he custom made it.”

The belfry now has windows, so the bell is visible from the road. Protheroe said that she’s looking forward to having it rung on Monday.

When the staff saw the remodeled space, Osgood said “they were thrilled with it.”

When it came time to pack up their temporary location, Osgood praised the older students for lending a huge helping hand.

“They put in a lot of elbow grease in getting stuff into the loading zone and boxing up items in classrooms and hauling out the desks, so they were a big help,” Osgood said.

And over winter break, current staff and former teacher Janet Rosenbach, whose name is now in the belfry, unpacked boxes and readied the school for Monday.

“I have an older group [of students], so they’re pretty excited [about coming back,” Protheroe said.

Of the construction timeline and budget, Osgood said that nothing really set them back but “we found some things that we want to tackle in the future.” And budget-wise, they are on track.

“We’re paying very close attention to that because if there’s a little bit left over, we’ll be able to tackle a project or two that’s just out waiting,” she said.

Once the new gym is completed by the end of February, Osgood anticipates holding an open house so the community can see the updates.

What won’t be finished by the end of the 2025-2026 school year is the playing field, which will be seeded and ready for use for the 2026-2027 school year.

Osgood expressed appreciation for Rock Project Management for helping the team navigate the project and Christiansen General Contractors “for being so flexible and willing to work with us.”

The staff too were praised for their flexibility this school year.

“This [year] was really hard. Hard to pack up your whole room, hard to live in a temporary location, hard to move back on a tight, tight timeline,” Osgood said. “And they were all in and didn’t complain. They’re amazing.”

And for the students, Osgood said, “I’d also extend a huge thanks to the students for their willingness to be in that temporary space and be willing to help in any way they could.”

As for seeing the school over the past 20 years to now, “I had great predecessors who shared their vision of living within your means and repurposing things and using things to the end of their life,” Osgood said. “And I’d love to continue down that same path in hopes that helps to maintain this school, being here for another 100 years.”