Seton High School gears up

For the next few years, Seton Catholic High School will hold classes in this leased office building on Northeast 112th Avenue in Vancouver. A new campus is to be built on 38 acres near the Interstate 5 Ridgefield exit.

Ed Little, left, principal of new high school.

Approaching 2009, a longtime vision is nearing reality: A new Catholic high school for Southwest Washington students.

Open houses, testing of prospective students and teacher recruiting has already begun for what formally will be known as the “St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic College Preparatory High School,” due to start classes next September.

For Principal Ed Little, a 31-year veteran of Vancouver Public Schools, “Seton Catholic” will do just fine, thank you.

Eventually, Seton will be housed on an estimated $55 million campus in Ridgefield, on 38 acres of farmland next to St. Mary of Guadalupe Catholic Church. That’s near the Ridgefield exit off Interstate 5.

Master plans call for a full-service school building, chapel, gymnasium and ball fields to serve up to 750 students. But that’s still millions of fundraising dollars away.

For at least the next two or three years, Seton High will operate in a leased office building in east Vancouver’s Fircrest neighborhood.

The two-story, red-brick office space is at 811 N.E. 112th Ave., close to the Mill Plain Boulevard exit off Interstate 205.

Little said he expects Seton to open with 60 to 80 students, “and then let it grow” to as many as 225 in the current location. Architects will soon draw plans to fill out an empty building shell.

“It has (room for) an open commons area, computer lab, open space. It has everything we need,” Little said. The setup should take shape by May.

Little said interest in the new school has been high. An open house drew nearly 200 people in November, he said.

Two weeks ago, nearly 100 youths took a standard Catholic school placement test at Vancouver’s St. Joseph Catholic School, and at St. Rose Catholic Church in Longview. Another 20 or so Oregon students tested also expressed interest in attending Seton.

Exam results are due in January. Soon, student applications will begin. Screening includes a review of current school grades and an interview with Little, newly named Vice Principal Andy Nichols, and the yet-to-be-named academic adviser.

Classes should be intimate, with about 15 students for every teacher. That means four or five instructors must be hired. Little said he’s received about 80 teacher résumés, and hopes to make hires in February.

Interest, obviously, has been most keen among Catholic families. But Little said students of all faiths are welcome.

“We’re looking for the student who wants the top-notch, pre-(Advanced Placement) and then, AP (curriculum),” he said. “Every student who graduates from Seton will have every opportunity to go the school they want to.”

Favorites listed so far would be Catholic schools such as Gonzaga University, Seattle University, the University of Portland and the University of Notre Dame.

The September opening has downsized considerably from 400 initial students predicted in mid-2006 by the high school’s organizing board. But that also presumed starting with a larger Ridgefield campus.

A sour economy might play a role. Seton Catholic will charge $8,500 in annual base tuition (locked in for all four years, for founding students) to begin, a bit less than Portland-area Catholic school rates.

For help, students may apply for a Fullcrum Foundation scholarship offered by the Archdiocese of Seattle, Little said. The archdiocese oversees Seton High, and all of Western Washington. A school endowment also is in the works.

A close link with Catholic institutions will be integral to student lives. Graduates will complete a service learning component tied to a parish church each of their four years, 100 hours in all, Little said.

Seton High will fill a gap long faced by Catholics across greater Southwest Washington.

Right now, about 300 Catholic students from as far away as the Longview-Kelso area commute to Portland-area LaSalle, Central Catholic, Jesuit and St. Mary’s high schools, Little said.

A chance to stay in Washington, and not fight Portland traffic, is a big plus.

“For some families, it’s huge not to have to cross that bridge,” Little said.

“We’d like them to stay home. We’re definitely going to be a regional high school,” he said. “We’re built purposely to do that.”