LWSD Superintendent Kimball projects an increase in portables

Sup. Chip Kimball

Lake Washington School District Superintendent Chip Kimball comfortably projects less than a 10% increase in district portables by 2014.

During Redmond city council's August 30 "study session" on school impact fees, Councilmember John Stilin asked about portables and how they add value to the community. (Stilin volunteers at Rockwell and has three kids through the district). He quoted, "7% of district students are in portables this year" with further increases over time.

Superintendent Kimball stepped in to respond. He described the challenge of managing fluctuations in populations over time with balancing the high overhead costs of building new schools. "It's a tricky balance", said Kimball. To give perspective to the challenge Kimball cited two examples:

1. The district currently has 3,000,000 square feet of school space. Increasing the square footage of space (with portables) by 10%, is the equivalent of building two high schools.

2. All-day kindergarten in every school is desired. If the district built one Kindergarten classroom in every school this would be the equivalent of building two elementary schools - "a 50 million dollar problem." (He noted, the State doesn't fund all-day kindergarten care.)

Stilin cited the dramatic growth in Rockwell Elementary (from 200 to 656 students). Kimball mentioned Redmond Ridge's Rosa Parks Elementary as another example of skewed growth. Despite this growth, "over the past four years portable count in the entire district was reduced by over 100," said Kimball.

Lake Washington School District Superintendent Chip Kimball comfortably projects less than a 10% increase in portables by 2014.  

Stilin had concerns that rising birth rates from rising employment in Redmond "could throw off the counts." Sup. Kimball responded, birth rates are only one of many factors in planning building space. New developments and attrition are considerations. Juanita counts are decreasing; Redmond Ridge is up. "We don't rely exclusively on birth rates." Kimball went onto say:

"It's interesting, every time we have this conversation people will call into question the methodology we use because of their experience; they walk into a room like Rockwell and say, 'my-gosh, this place is crowded, are these people idiots?' That's what we get.

The district has 25,000 students and we're usually within 100 kids of our projection, based on historical data. We have a good methodology that's pretty accurate, given the degree of error."

Reported By Bob Yoder

School impact fee rates, LWSD portable projections and "One Redmond" economic development were on the table at this August 30 meeting. I'll try to get to all of them.  9/4