By Susan Wilkins, LWSD parent and taxpayer
King County's Growth Management Planning Council convened a School Siting Task Force in 2012 to address the issue of school districts building schools in rural areas and then sending city kids out to the schools. The Task Force made a rule that no new schools could be built outside the Urban Growth Boundary, but didn't have time to address the issue of whether existing rural schools could be remodeled or be expanded.
The intent of the School Siting Task Force was to require school districts to build inside city boundaries where most people live and where ALL of the new homes, condos and apartments are being built. Chip Kimball, the school district's previous superintendent was on the Task Force so the district was aware of the Task Force's recommendation.
The Lake Washington School District has been tone-deaf to the intent of the School Siting Task Force and the needs of its students and families. The district has decided to add most of the new classroom portables and remodeled space at its rural schools. It plans to send HUNDREDS of additional students out to rural schools from inside the Redmond and Sammamish city limits. The district says they must add portables to rural schools because that is the only place that space is available. This is just NOT true.
The school district has known for nearly three years that King County's Growth Management Planning Council (GMPC) and the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) do not want students who live in cities to be sent to rural schools. Both of these governing bodies have a mandate to create regional development plans and objectives that dictate how, when and where growth occurs. Vision 2040's MPP-PS-21 & 22 dictate that new school facilities (even if it is a portable or remodeled space) should be located inside cities.* The school district has a mandate to follow their rules and recommendations. LWSD should not be adding classroom capacity to Evergreen, Alcott, Dickinson or Wilder and students should not be required to leave the city to go to these rural schools.
In addition to contacting the Lake Washington School District School Board, parents should contact King County, the GMPC and the PSRC. In your email, note that students will not be able to walk, bike or even ride a Metro bus to/from the rural schools because they are located on dangerous rural roads far from the students' homes. Tell King County not to issue Building Permits and Conditional Use Permits for the interior remodels and portables. (The PSRC does have the authority to freeze King County's transportation funds if the county issues permits that don't comply with Vision 2040 - so that just might be an incentive for the county not to issue the permits...)
Send email about this issue to:
King County Executive - Dow Constantine (natasha.jones@kingcounty.gov)
King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert (kathy.lambert@kingcounty.gov)
Growth Management Planning Council - Karen Wolf (karen.wolf@kingcounty.gov)
Puget Sound Regional Council - Rick Olsen (rolsen@psrc.org)
*(http://www.psrc.org/assets/1745/Public_Services.pdf)
King County's Growth Management Planning Council convened a School Siting Task Force in 2012 to address the issue of school districts building schools in rural areas and then sending city kids out to the schools. The Task Force made a rule that no new schools could be built outside the Urban Growth Boundary, but didn't have time to address the issue of whether existing rural schools could be remodeled or be expanded.
The intent of the School Siting Task Force was to require school districts to build inside city boundaries where most people live and where ALL of the new homes, condos and apartments are being built. Chip Kimball, the school district's previous superintendent was on the Task Force so the district was aware of the Task Force's recommendation.
The Lake Washington School District has been tone-deaf to the intent of the School Siting Task Force and the needs of its students and families. The district has decided to add most of the new classroom portables and remodeled space at its rural schools. It plans to send HUNDREDS of additional students out to rural schools from inside the Redmond and Sammamish city limits. The district says they must add portables to rural schools because that is the only place that space is available. This is just NOT true.
The school district has known for nearly three years that King County's Growth Management Planning Council (GMPC) and the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) do not want students who live in cities to be sent to rural schools. Both of these governing bodies have a mandate to create regional development plans and objectives that dictate how, when and where growth occurs. Vision 2040's MPP-PS-21 & 22 dictate that new school facilities (even if it is a portable or remodeled space) should be located inside cities.* The school district has a mandate to follow their rules and recommendations. LWSD should not be adding classroom capacity to Evergreen, Alcott, Dickinson or Wilder and students should not be required to leave the city to go to these rural schools.
In addition to contacting the Lake Washington School District School Board, parents should contact King County, the GMPC and the PSRC. In your email, note that students will not be able to walk, bike or even ride a Metro bus to/from the rural schools because they are located on dangerous rural roads far from the students' homes. Tell King County not to issue Building Permits and Conditional Use Permits for the interior remodels and portables. (The PSRC does have the authority to freeze King County's transportation funds if the county issues permits that don't comply with Vision 2040 - so that just might be an incentive for the county not to issue the permits...)
Send email about this issue to:
King County Executive - Dow Constantine (natasha.jones@kingcounty.gov)
King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert (kathy.lambert@kingcounty.gov)
Growth Management Planning Council - Karen Wolf (karen.wolf@kingcounty.gov)
Puget Sound Regional Council - Rick Olsen (rolsen@psrc.org)
*(http://www.psrc.org/assets/1745/Public_Services.pdf)
Susan, you say it's NOT true that there is no space in incorporated King County for portables. Where could they go to meet the District's present short term needs? And why isn't the District putting them there?
ReplyDeleteThe district's enrollment projections can be found at
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lwsd.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/About-Us/Study-Sessions/2014-09-08/Detailed-Enrollment-Capacity-and-Space-Needs.pdf
Kamiakin Middle School has projected capacity for 105 additional students in 2015-16 and Rose Hill MS has room for 212. Both of these middle schools could accept students from Redmond Middle School and would not be overcapacity until 2017-18. Portables could eventually be added at these schools instead of at Evergreen if the district hasn't passed a levy or bond measure and built more middle school capacity by then.
Sending Redmond Middle School students to Rose Hill or Kamiakin Middle Schools would assign students from the Redmond Learning Community to the Juanita Learning Community. Is this really against the rules? Is there an invisible barrier where students can't cross a Learning Community boundary? It seems crazy that the school district would add portables to Evergreen and bus students out there instead of utilizing existing space just because the feeder patterns don't line up.
Einstein, Mann and Redmond El could all have more portables. (The district could put them on the soccer fields as a last resort.) Or the district could remodel the interiors of these 3 schools. There is so much under-utilized common space in these schools that could be turned into usable classroom space.
This boundary change is supposed to be temporary, and yet they are spending money on construction that will be permanent.
The school siting recommendations disallowed schools outside the urban boundary to reduce impact on taxpayers in the unincorporated areas. The county doesn't have funds for roads in unincorporated areas now that most people live in cities and aren't subject to county road tax.
ReplyDeleteLWSD has 3 school sites on Novelty Hill Road that were discussed. The one that is just outside Redmond city limits near 196th Ave was allowed and the one just outside Redmond Ridge next to the watershed was restricted to a small school. The third site near 208th Ave was disallowed.
Having these sites available does not help though, since the bond was not passed. However, according to a post from the district on the boundary blog, it appears that the city of Redmond is not issuing permits for more portables at Redmond MS, while King County is willing to issue permits at Evergreen MS. If anything, it would be useful to ask the city as to why they wouldn't allow more portables at schools inside the city limits.
Check out the post from Dec 4th here about Redmond refusing permits for more portables at Redmond MS.
http://www.lwsd.org/News/Reboundary/Boundary-Blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=7
Another great question. We will be adding one portable to Redmond Middle this summer but that's all that the city of Redmond will allow us to add to this site. We do not have the option of adding any more. At Evergreen, in unincorporated King County, we can add more portables and we can add teacher planning spaces. Those will allow us to assign classes to classrooms that are currently used by teachers during their planning periods. That will make the use of current space at Evergreen more efficient. (Redmond Middle already has those spaces, added when we modernized the school.) See the district's short term housing plan announcement in the news & announcements section for more information.