LETTER: Why vote "Yes" for $65M expansion when District has $200M to spend?

LETTER:  In 1997 the district completed the “Study and Survey of School Facilities” and evaluated each of its existing schools for modernization or replacement. Per WAC 125-25-025, each school facility and its major systems and subsystems were to be evaluated based on the condition of deterioration and the cost of restoration vs. the cost of replacement. As a result, each school in the Lake Washington School District was placed in one of 4 phases for modernization/replacement based on an 8-year cycle. Although the list of schools assigned to each of four phases is still available, the original report detailing the condition of the facilities, the cost analysis, and other factors that determining decisions made by the facilities committee has not been found.

In February 1998, voters approved a bond measure for the “modernization” of the first 11 schools in Phase I. At that time, modernization still meant renovation, and the first two schools on the list, Audubon Elementary and Lakeview Elementary, were remodeled and updated. All schools since then have been torn down and rebuilt.

Phase I – 1998 Bond Measure for $160,000,000:
2000 - Audubon Elementary – $7,000,000 (remodel and updated)
2001 - Lakeview Elementary – $5,000,000 (remodel and expansion)
2000 - Twain Elementary –cost: unavailable
2002 - Redmond Junior High – $23,488,811
2003 - Horace Mann Elementary – $11,683,439
2003 - Thoreau Elementary – $11,052, 075
2003 - Redmond High School – $53,000,000
2004 - Kirkland Junior High – $15,489,298
2005 - Juanita Elementary – $9,666,000
2006 - Franklin Elementary –$9,899,672
2006 - Rose Hill Elementary – $10,712,410

Phase II - 2006 Bond Measure for $436,000,000:

2008 - Carson Elementary – $19,100,000 (New)
2009 - Frost Elementary – $19,100,000
2010 - Finn Hill Junior High – $29,679,028
2011 - Lake Washington High School – $58,700,000+ (final cost: tbd)  READ MORE
2011 - Muir Elementary –Bid: 18,300,000
2011 - Ben Rush Elementary – cost: tbd
2012 – Bell Elementary – cost: tbd
2012 – Keller Elementary – cost: tbd
2012 – Sandburg Elementary – cost: tbd
2013 - Rose Hill Junior High – cost: tbd
2013 – Community Elementary – cost: tbd
2013 – International Community School (ICS) – cost: tbd

It’s interesting to note that the cost of rebuilding an elementary school was about $10,000,000 during Phase I, but the three elementary schools that have been built or bid during Phase II cost nearly twice as much. The Phase II school buildings have become more architecturally elaborate and complex with three-story atriums, catwalks, soaring ceilings, walls of glass, and natural stone. These features are to be expected in a hotel or shopping mall, not in our schools and not paid for with our tax dollars!

The school district wants us to believe that money from the bond measures is for “modernization” while money from the upcoming levy is for “expansion” and somehow these two are separate and unrelated.  READ MORE 
Why can’t the Rose Hill Junior High modernization be built with additional space for the STEM high school? (RHJH is on a huge 23 acre lot.) Why can’t ICS be rebuilt to be twice as big (consider that the waitlist has 600+ students)? Why can’t each of the new elementary schools have 4-6 additional classrooms? Maybe tearing down and rebuilding every school isn’t cost effective anymore and some of the schools that are supposed to be replaced should instead be remodeled and/or expanded.

The district has nearly $200,000,000 left for Phase II modernization. Can’t they be creative and think outside the box and figure out how to stretch those dollars to cover the modernization and expansion? Ask yourself, “Why should I vote YES to give the school district $66 million more when they still have $200 million to spend from the 2006 Phase II bond measure?”

Opinion by Susan Wilkins
Redmond, WA
Parent of 4 children in LWSD
PTSA - school volunteer

SOURCES:  The final construction costs for the buildings were taken from Board Meeting info packets, from press releases and from individual school websites. I think it's pretty accurate.
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 I took my kids on a field trip over to Frost Elementary this week. It won the 2010 Polished Apple Award for architectural excellence. It's the fourth Polished Apple that LWSD has received. You can do a visual tour by going to http://www.lwsd.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/For-The-Community/Modernization/Frost/Frost-Info-Sheet.pdf  The building is breathtakingly beautiful and an architectural wonder. We Oo'd and Ahh'd. It was amazing. But - it was an elementary school and was so over the top and obviously ridiculously expensive to build. What was the district thinking when they approved this building?  S.W.