Prevent overcrowding and provide equitable high school facilities

Over the years, Lake Washington School District has gotten very good at projecting student numbers. They watch birth rates in the area and track every housing development that is proposed. With this information, they are able to tell how many students will show up in their schools in years to come.

Growth

Those numbers are now telling the district that growth is on its way. A district that has had some falling or even numbers is now starting to see the number of students going up. By 2014, there will be 1400 more students in the district. That’s a lot of classrooms needed!

Four-year high schools

The district has asked parents whether that space should be built where many of the new students will be coming in, at the elementary level, or whether the district should build more space at the high school level and shift to four-year high schools, the standard in most of the state and indeed the nation. Parents have generally indicated strong support for this change.

Ninth graders who are in a high school building have a much better chance of understanding how important their work that year is: it’s the first year that shows up on their high school transcript that goes to colleges. It’s a lot harder to get that across to a student who is in a junior high school building.

The proposal is to add two elementary schools in the areas with the most growth. Additions to Redmond High and Eastlake High would accommodate adding one more grade. And the Environmental and Adventure School would move to new facility, expanding to grades 6-12. All these changes will give the district enough classroom space to take care of the new students.

Juanita High School

The other item added to the proposed bond measure is the modernization of Juanita High School. Lake Washington School District has a program for modernizing all its schools every 30-40 years. The first of four phases of modernization was completed between 1998 and 2006 using bond dollars approved by the voters in 1998. A second modernization bond was passed in 2006 It has paid for the new Carson Elementary, which eased overcrowding on the Sammamish plateau, and the new Frost Elementary in Kirkland. The district has a strong track record of completing projects on time and on budget.

Because of the cost and complexity of modernizing a high school, the district planned to modernize one high school in each of the four phases of modernization. When it came to determining which school should be included in the 2006 bond, it was really a tossup between Lake Washington High School and Juanita High School. Both schools had some significant issues and needs. So when Lake Washington High School reopens in 2012 in a brand new building, that will leave Juanita High School as the only one in the district that is not in a modern building. It’s really a matter of fairness: these students deserve to have a good facility that is built for today’s educational program.

Juanita High School is scheduled to be on the 2014 bond that will be proposed for the third phase of modernization. This measure would simply move that up by four years, making the 2014 bond correspondingly smaller. If passed, it would mean that Juanita High School will have an equitable facility sooner. It also means the district may be able to take advantage of interest rates that are now historically low and construction costs that have come down from recent years. If we wait another four years, modernizing Juanita High School may cost taxpayers a lot more. Why not take advantage of these good conditions and provide all our high school students with a good high school building?

Construction and Modernization Bond