WHS Facility Planning: Design Advisory Committee Hits the Road and Gets to Work

The work of envisioning a future Wenatchee High School is moving quickly — and the community voices shaping that work are fully engaged.

Earlier this week, a group of Design Advisory Committee members traveled to Western Washington to tour four recently built high schools — Tyee, Rainier Beach, Sammamish, and Evergreen — seeing firsthand what modern learning spaces look, feel, and function like before bringing those insights back to Wenatchee. What works. What doesn't. What Wenatchee can learn from — and what makes our community unique.

Then the full committee gathered for their second meeting, working through prioritization exercises to identify what spaces and characteristics matter most in a future WHS and wrestling with one central question: what is the heart of this school?

These are the same exercises the Integrus Architecture team conducted with WHS student design advisory and district leadership — deliberately designed to surface the common themes that emerge when Wenatchee speaks with one voice about what it values. The goal is a design that doesn't just function well — but feels unmistakably like Wenatchee.

Looking Ahead

This community engagement and design work is building toward an important milestone. Wenatchee School District is planning for a November 2026 bond measure that would fund the replacement of Wenatchee High School and HVAC improvements at seven additional district facilities. The design process underway — informed by students, staff, community members, and the broader public — will shape what voters are asked to consider this fall. 

Learn more about the Design Advisory Committee and outreach on their website.