Welcome to the Bertschi campus, where students are encouraged to play, create, examine, question and share their selves and ideas with their friends and community in a safe and inspiring urban setting.
Step into the Bertschi campus and take a virtual tour of our spaces including:
Guided by our Strategic Plan 2018+, Bertschi School recently adopted a campus master plan. The plan provides a high-level vision for changes and improvements to the campus for the next 5-10 years. Learn more>>
As the first LEED gold-certified building on an independent school campus in the Pacific NW, the Bertschi Center provides an active learning environment for students to learn about the scarcity of resources and to witness first-hand the use of rapidly renewable and recycled materials like our gym’s bamboo floor, and the building’s cotton batt insulation and wheat-board walls and cabinetry. The Bertschi Center is a campus resource classroom building for the art, music, and physical education programs and is the main meeting space for all school events.
As the first certified "Living Building" in Washington State and the first in the world built to the Living Building Challenge 2.0 standard, the Julie Blystad Science Wing includes solar panels, a living wall of tropical plants to treat grey water, radiant floor heating, and composting toilet. Science comes alive for students as we learn about solar energy generation and rainwater reclamation as well as plant and animal studies in the EcoHouse and exterior gardens.
Our rainwater collection systems store roof run-off in large above ground and underground cisterns. One of these provides water for the children to hand-water their on-campus gardens where they grow food and harvest native vegetation to gain an understanding of urban agriculture. Come take a closer look at the plants that make up the Bertschi gardens.
Our teachers make the most of Bertschi’s own back yard by incorporating local landmarks, parks, destinations and people into our curriculum, including Volunteer Park, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Seattle Fire Station 22, and our own neighborhood.
* We offer Science Wing tours twice a month. To register, please email [email protected].