Teacher Kelsey Landreth has nearly lifelong investment in Trinity Catholic School

Kelsey Landreth’s emotional investment in Trinity Catholic School is obvious.

The third-grade teacher has a visible kick in her step when speaking of the school’s new 22,000-square-foot building, slated for completion in December.

Landreth, 30, also becomes misty-eyed envisioning Trinity’s current 90-year-old red brick structure being demolished.

“I know that I am going to have a hard time with it. This is basically my second home,” Landreth said of the private school on West Montgomery Avenue. “I’ve gone here from age 2 through junior high and have been working here since I was 19. I know this place like the back of my hand.”

Landreth can tell you all about the secret passageway, a narrow set of stairs that lead to a former nun dormitory. She’s quick to point to an old holy water font in the wall of a preschool classroom.

When Landreth teaches her first third-grade class on Sept. 5, it will be in the same classroom where she was a third-grader 22 years ago. Most of the decor is the same.

Her commute to Trinity is much different. Instead of the swift two-block walk she enjoyed as a child, Landreth battles the morning gridlock driving from her upper North Side residence.

After graduating from North Central High School, Landreth earned an undergraduate degree at Eastern Washington University and a master’s at Gonzaga University. To help pay for college, she ran Trinity’s Educare Center, a preschool and day care program, a job she’d keep for 10 years.

“This school has such a good vibe. It’s really well-rounded,” Landreth said. “It attracts students whose families make a lot of money, hardly any and everything in between. There’s a great sense of community here.”

Principal Sandra Nokes knew the school – an institution with an enrollment of 150, from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade – was in Landreth’s blood since Nokes accepted the job nine years ago.

“Some of the things that make Trinity special (are) the sense of family and community,” Nokes said. “And knowing the history. Kelsey understands all of that and knows the school’s culture and mission.”

Nokes has witnessed Landreth blossom from a college student to a full-time educator.

“Kelsey is one of the most unique kinds of people who are mature beyond their years,” Nokes said. “She has a great sense of people.”

“People joke that I’ll be the principal one day,” Landreth said with a chuckle.

Perhaps Nokes would be her predecessor.

“(Landreth) definitely has it in her,” Nokes said.

Nokes and Landreth hope the school can move into its new building at winter break.

Two years ago Trinity received a donation that helped launch the $4 million project. Major donors were Edmund O. and Beatriz Schweitzer III, of Pullman. Construction broke ground in April on a two-story structure that takes over half an acre near the current Trinity building.

The current school building, built in 1928, will be torn down to make room for a new gym.

“A lot of deep friendships and bonds were built there,” Landreth said.