Graham School District #108 was approved and created on August 5, 1907. Five months later, in 1908, the first Graham school opened. The school began as a one-room schoolhouse with 12 to 15 students.
Let’s jump forward to 1988, when the current Graham Elementary School building opened. It resides in the Bethel School District, and its first principal was Wally Platt. Wally served from 1988 to 2002 - 14 years.
Wally retired in 2002 and Kelley Boynton became GE’s second principal. He served 6.5 years and was elected to be principal at Nelson Elementary - opening in the fall of 2009. He left at mid-year to concentrate on the opening of Nelson, and the vice-principal, Joe Barrett, took the helm for the rest of the 2008-2009 school year. Joe is retiring in 2009 after 8 years - 7.5 as vice-principal.
So, I guess you could say we are about to embark on GE’s third dynasty. Rob Haugen was named principal for school year 2009-2010. He comes to us from Camas Prairie Elementary where he served as vice-principal for 4 years.
There are big changes in store for school year 2009-2010. With the opening of Nelson and Fredrickson elementary schools, a district wide boundary re-organization has taken place in order to alleviate over-crowding at several of Bethel’s elementary schools. GE was originally built to house around 500 students, but has had 800+ for several years. Thirteen portables are currently set up behind the main school building.
With the re-organization plan, approximately 200 students will remain at GE with over 300 kids coming from Pioneer Valley Elementary and North Star Elementary. Our estimated student population for 2009-2010 is 525 students.
Some of our teaching staff will be moving to the new schools, but it appears that all of our GE teaching staff will be made up of current GE teachers. So, despite the fact that our administration and many of our students will be new to Graham, the staff will provide the glue that insures that GE remains the great school that it is. In fact, we are excited about our new students/families and our new principal and expect they will contribute to making Graham an even more awesome elementary school.
Graham Elementary
10026 204th St E
Graham, WA 98338
Phone: 253-683-8500
