Redmond Neighborhood Blog: Editorial: Three smart reasons to vote YES on L.W. School District levy and bond measures.
LETTER: Anonymous said...
Proposition No. 3 on the February 9, 2010 ballot authorizes the Lake Washington School District to "modernize" Juanita High School. To me, "modernize" means to remodel, but to the District, "modernize" means to tear down and rebuild. We have been told that it would cost more to remodel than to rebuild. I find this hard to believe. When the economy was doing well, voters approved bond measures to replace the oldest schools and build new schools to ease overcrowding. At some point the District decided that the normal life of a school is 30-40 years and set up a schedule to replace all school buildings within the district. By the District's definition, Juanita High School, at age 39 is at the end of its useful life.
Juanita High School is located in Kirkland near Juanita Bay. It has two large buildings: a 129,000 sq.ft. school building and a 74,000 sq.ft. field house that contains a gym and a pool. Both buildings were constructed in 1971. The pool and the portable near the east side of the building may have some major maintenance issues, but otherwise, both main buildings appear to be in good condition. School districts around the country would love to have a 39-year-old building like Juanita High School and wouldn't think of tearing it down. When did we become so extravagant to think that JHS is too old and useless?
According to the District's "Capital Facilities Plan 2009-2014", Juanita High School has 52 standard classrooms and 8 portable classrooms that can hold 32 students each. Using 60 classrooms with 32 students per class, Juanita High School can accommodate 1920 students (although the District assumes utilization of each class at 70% to account for teacher planning areas.) Even with the teacher planning areas, JHS can hold 1350 students and that's more than enough room for the additional 300 ninth graders who will be included when the school is converted to the 9-12 grade model.
The main argument I've seen to justify tearing down Juanita High School is so that it will be as new as Redmond High School (2003) and Lake Washington High School (2011). Can we keep spending and building so that everyone is going to a new school? Did the last decade with our "building boom" condition us to believe that we had to tear down and rebuild because everything wasn't brand new or the configuration wasn't quite right? We need to see some more creative problem-solving from the District that doesn't automatically require tear-downs.
I do support Propositions 1 & 2, but I cannot justify approving $234,000,000 for Proposition 3, most of which will be spent to destroy a perfectly good building and then rebuild it. I will be voting: Prop1:YES, Prop2:YES, Prop3:NO
By Anonymous
February 1, 2010 11:14 AM
"I understand from the Lake Washington School District's web site that their proposed Bond Issue includes 134 million dollars for the "modernization" of Juanita High School. That web site also describes "modernization" as the complete upgrading of a facility by either renovation or tear-down and replacement. Although there is no information in the voter's pamphlet or web site regarding the scope of work planned for Juanita High School, their director of communications has informed me that the school district hasn't yet decided how they will "modernize" the school. She says that the full study to make this decision has not been done, but that the money asked for in the Bond Issue is for the worst-case scenario, a tear down and full replacement.
ReplyDeleteThere could be arguably somewhere around 100 million dollars difference between the complete renovation of this easily modernized building and a tear-down and replacement. Whereas there are many complex issues regarding Juanita High School, I believe that they should have been be thoroughly vetted and resolved, a complete analysis of options for modernization completed and an openly justified decision made on how to proceed with this project before the school district asked us for the approval to spend such a large sum of money. I can't justify my vote of approval for this Bond Issue absent such process."
Paul Hall