OPINION: Students Are Sitting in Portables and Overcrowded Classrooms While LWSD Sits on $55,500,000 in Unspent Construction Funds

By Susan Wilkins


It makes me very upset to know that the district has been sitting on over $50 million and won't spend it on our students, but they think it's ok to give away $10,000,000 to Kirkland to build a new swimming pool.  How can we have any confidence in this school district when they flippantly ignore $50,000,000 that's available when Rockwell, Mann, Rosa Parks, RMS, and all the Sammamish elementary schools are packed with students?  What was even more appalling was that the school board members didn't seem too upset by the news that there was money available and unspent.  What is going through their minds? 

The topic at the May 5, 2014 LWSD Work Session was "Enrollment and Facility Planning."  At this meeting, the district had already conceded that the April 22 bond measure for $404,000,000 was not going to pass.  All five school board members were present at the meeting and expressed frustration and anger at voters and at the opposition committee that had campaigned against the ballot measure. 

The school board members appeared to have no idea what should be done to address overcrowding so they looked to Superintendent Traci Pierce and she looked to Janene Fogard and Forrest Miller.  Janene Fogard is the Assistant Superintendent of Operations and Forrest Miller is Director of Support Services.  Janene and Forrest appeared to be making all the decisions on facilities planning.  Read More>>

The Goose on the Roof is Back!

Drivers heading north on Avondale should look at the roof of the old brick house on the right side of the road across from NE 88th Street.  This is the third year in a row that the goose has made her nest up on the roof.  There are really two geese that share the nesting duties, but mostly it's Mother Goose who spends all her time there.

 

The geese built the nest in spring 2012 out of moss that had grown on the roof.  They returned one afternoon late last week, and since then, one or the other has been sitting on the nest continuously to keep their eggs warm.

The eggs take 24-28 days to hatch so the geese should be on the roof until the last week of April.  When the eggs hatch, the goslings will stay in the nest for one day and then the family will be gone until next spring.

By Susan Wilkins

LETTER: History of LWSD Construction & Modernization: 1998-present

By Susan Wilkins

 

In 1997, the Lake Washington School District created a modernization plan to keep its schools updated.  Schools were divided into 4 phases based on their age, and every 8 years a quarter of the schools were to be updated or remodeled.    In 1998 voters approved the Phase I Bond measure for $160,000,000 to modernize the first 11 schools on its list.

 

The word "modernization" means to update, and the first two schools on the Phase I modernization list, Audubon Elementary and Lakeview Elementary, were updated for about $5 million each.  After these two schools were updated, the district adopted a plan where they tore down old schools and replaced them with new schools by using a new-in-lieu calculation that showed that the cost to rebuild was about 80% of the cost to remodel.  The district added complex requirements to the school remodels that were difficult if not impossible to incorporate into the old schools at a reasonable price.  The cost of remodeling old schools soared and thus the district was able to justify tearing down and rebuilding schools rather than updating them.  The district started using the term "modernization" to mean tear-down/rebuild.  They also began building schools that were shockingly expensive with amenities and special features that were unnecessarily extravagant.  Read More >>

Opinion: Realities of the proposed $404,000,000 bond

Susan Wilkins said...

The proposed $404,000,000 bond measure is a HUGE amount of money. It just seems like a small amount when compared to the previous $755M bond measure. To suggest that it will cost taxpayers only $10/month or a couple cups of coffee to pay off is utterly ridiculous. Our school board rushed this bond measure and didn't bother to check their math. Their calculations are wrong! The bonds will cost nearly 4 times as much as the district states!

Intuitively, $404,000,000 paid back over 20 years will cost $20.2 million per year just to pay for the principal. With 4.25% interest, taxpayers will need to pay back about $30 million per year, about the same amount as the Capital Projects Levy that just passed or $.91/thousand in assessed value. So paying off $404 million will cost the owner of a $500,000 house about $450 per year or $40 per month, not $10/month.

Sammamish residents are the biggest losers with this bond measure. They get nothing! No additional elementary classroom space, no new eastside ICS choice school (as was promised), and no new middle or high school space.   Read More >>

Letter: How LWSD uses taxpayer money to influence the outcome of the upcoming election

By Susan Wilkins

As part of the Lake Washington School District's plan to "modernize" Juanita High School, the district plans to tear down the 42-year-old building and replace it with a new building.  In 1968, King County voters approved the Forward Thrust Bond Measure that built pools around the county to teach children to swim.  Juanita High School and the Forward Thrust pool were both built at the Juanita High School site in 1971.   Read More >>

Opinion: LWSD Bond Measure Inadequate, By Susan Wilkins

LWSD Bond Measure Inadequate - Elementary Classroom Space Shortage & Overcrowding Reaching Crisis Levels in District

 

Let me say that I have had children at Mann, Rockwell and Einstein so I know these schools and the surrounding neighborhoods well. I reviewed and/or commented on plans for most of the new developments that have been built over the past decade or that are in the process of being built.  I often wondered, "How will all the children who will move into these houses fit into our already overcrowded schools?"  Read More >>

Citizen activist rebuts LWSD bond measure at Redmond City Hall

UPDATED:  The City Council voted 5-2 to endorse the two proposed LWSD levies and bond but not before Susan Wilkins, citizen activist, spoke up to warn them to act carefully, as follows: 

Ms. Wilkins said that 23 of 30 elementary schools are already overcapacity and the new bond wouldn't fully resolve the overcrowding problem.  Alcott has the most dire overcrowding with 227 students in 8 portables. 

The scope of portable usage in elementary schools is significant with  91 portables district-wide.  Wilkins said 1822 elementary students use portables for their classrooms.  The 2014 bond, if it passed would create 1615 seats by 2016 which is still below present and mid-term needs.  The three new elementary schools do not completely address the crisis with portables and modernization of Meade, Kirk, and Rockwell won't happen for 7-8 years.  And by that time the schools will be severely overcrowded, Wilkins said.

Wilkins also said the District has understated the cost of the two Levies and Bond.  She conceded that while the measures may cost the average $450,000 home $30/month in 2014 total costs for the measures will escalate to $80/month by 2018.  "People deserve to know what they're voting for", concluded Wilkins.

Byron Shutz,of the Bond and Levy Committee and now Redmond Councilman-elect, was present but had nothing to say.  All councilmembers made positive remarks about LWSD in support of the measures. 

Reported by Bob Yoder

 

LETTER: Can Lake Washington School District taxpayers afford another $755,000,000 in bond debt for school construction?

By Susan Wilkins

 

In 2006, voters approved the sale of $436,000,000 in 20-year bonds to pay for school modernization.  The ballot measure that voters approved, Proposition 3 (see below*), specifically said that bonds would be sold to pay for the "modernization" of the schools. The school district tore down and rebuilt every school on the modernization list calling the teardowns "new-in lieu" construction. The district claimed that the remodels would cost 90% of what new construction would cost and thus justified tearing the buildings down rather fixing them. 

Ten schools were torn down and rebuilt including 6 elementary schools (Frost, Muir, Keller, Sandburg, Bell and Rush), 2 middle schools (Finn Hill and Rose Hill), Lake Washington High School and International Community School. Only one new school, Carson Elementary, was built as part of the 2006 bond measure.  Rebuilding these schools from the ground up was far more expensive than remodeling them.  The school district sold $417,000,000 in bonds between September 2006 and September 2010 to pay for all the construction.  Together with 1998 construction bonds sold for Phase 1 modernization and bonds sold in 2012 to pay for additions at Eastlake and Redmond High Schools, the Lake Washington School District now has $486,000,000 in outstanding bond debt.

In 2013-2014, the district will spend $51,500,000 on bond principle & interest payments for bonds issued in 1998, 2006 and 2012. And taxpayers will continue to pay $50,000,000 per year until 2020 and then $40,000,000 per year until 2025 in order to pay off these construction bonds. This will cost the median homeowner $57.00 per month through 2020 then $44.00 per month through 2025.

The district is proposing the 2014 bond measure to sell another $755,000,000 to pay for more "modernization" construction plus 3 new elementary schools, a middle school and more high school space.  They tell us it will only cost $30.00 per month for a median priced home assessed at $450,000.  In fact, the owner of a median priced home will pay about $60 per month - if the bonds are issued with 4% interest.  This is ON TOP OF THE COST for the 1998, 2006 & 2012 bonds and the EP&O and Capital Projects levies.  Read More >>

Letters: On growth in Lake Washington School District, the bond money and more

Susan Wilkins said...

The school district's long-term solution to the lack of elementary classroom space in Redmond is to tear down and rebuild Rockwell Elementary and to build a new school at the corner of 172nd Ave NE & NE 122nd Street. If the district follows its current building standards, each school will have enough space for 400 students. This is the only elementary school construction proposed for Redmond on the February 2014 ballot. When these schools open, they will probably have portables. Horace Mann, Redmond El and even Einstein all have room for portables, so it's just a matter of time until each school has its own village of portables.

The school district asks for bond money, builds small schools that are overcrowded when they open, adds portables and then asks for more money to build more schools because the district is "running out of space." This has been going on for as long as I can remember.

Maybe we should put up signs along NE 116th Street and in the downtown where all the construction is occurring that say: NO ROOM IN OUR SCHOOLS - DON'T MOVE HERE.

August 22, 2013 at 8:50 AM

Anonymous said...

During the last housing bubble, Redmond should have doubled it's building permit fees and given the money to LWSD to help build new schools - or at least pay for it's infamous portables. Growth should pay for growth, shouldn't it?
Too bad our liberal city government missed the opportunity!

LETTER: Do we really need another elementary school on Education Hill?

 Susan Wilkins said...

Do we really need another elementary school in North Redmond? Better question: Do we really need another elementary school at the top of Education Hill? We already have three: Mann, Rockwell and Einstein. Or would Redmond be better served by a new elementary school on the valley floor to serve all the students who live there - and there are many. Einstein Elementary gets hundreds of students from along Avondale Road. Rockwell Elementary gets hundreds of students from the condos and apartments near the Bella Botega QFC. Why aren't these students walking to neighborhood schools in the downtown or along Avondale Road where they live? Because the school district never figured out where to put new schools that would serve students living in the downtown areas. Redmond Elementary is the only elementary school for all the students in the downtown area and it is full. The school district should have built additional schools for all the downtown children long ago. Students from southeast Redmond in the Woodbridge neighborhoods have to leave the city and go 3 miles out to Alcott or Dickinson because there is no room for them at Redmond Elementary. (It would have made sense to build a school in southeast Redmond when Woodbridge was developed but instead 9 portables were added to Alcott. This is not wise planning.) Redmond has become a city without adequate school facilities for its students and families. The problem has been slowly festering for about 15 years as Redmond has added more and more housing units without the addition of adequate school facilities. Adding an elementary school in North Redmond isn't really the right solution to address the lack of adequate school facilities for residents in the downtown.

The school district should have seen this coming - literally. Their main office is at Towne Center in downtown Redmond. All they had to do was look out the window to see all the new buildings going up!

Besides purchasing the Washington Cathedral site and turning it into a K-5, K-8, 6-12 or 9-12, the district should look for other school locations in downtown Redmond. (Note that the Washington Cathedral site could be easily accessible by *walking* from the new neighborhoods being built along NE 116th Street.) The Woodbridge area still has medium sized parcels that aren't fully developed. It's unfortunate that the district didn't look to build a school there when Woodbridge was being built and large tracts were more easily available. There are also medium size parcels in the Willows Office Park area. The school district has said that it needs 10 acres to build an elementary school, but on closer investigation, this claim is not valid. The Washington Administrative Code (WAC 392-342-020) recommends 10 acres for elementary schools but it doesn't require 10 acres. (This explains why many elementary schools in Seattle are on only 4-6 acre parcels.)

Another large parcel that needs to be brought to the district's attention is the Keller Farm on Avondale Road. The northwest corner of the farm is zoned high-density. In 2007, the City of Redmond created the Bear Creek Overlay district and designated the 8.8 acres where the fruit stand is located as high density (for a retirement center that was never built.) A requirement of the plan was that the remaining 120 acres of the farm be left as permanently undeveloped. The City of Redmond is looking to purchase the farm for flood control and as an environmental mitigation bank. In a joint partnership, the school district and city could jointly purchase the property with the district getting 10 acres for a school and the city getting the rest for flood storage. The school would be an excellent location for students who live along Avondale Road and on the eastern edge of Redmond in the Woodbridge neighborhood.  It's just an idea

LETTER: A solution to the growing problem of portables and overcrowding at LWSD

By Susan Wilkins

Remember that the district gave the dire warning that if voters didn't approve the 2011 levy to build additions at Redmond High School and Eastlake High School that students would end up in portables? It turned out that all along the construction plans for the RHS Addition included site preparation for 10 portables next to the bus lanes. In Sept 2012, RHS opened with the new addition and 2 portables already on site. 

Portables are ugly and they isolate students from the rest of the school. The portables at RHS take up a lot of space on what was once a nice field. The site prep alone for the 10 RHS portables cost more than a million dollars - and then there was the cost of each portable. 

The district currently has 140 portables. It projects 4000 new students in the next 10 years. They are asking voters to approve the 2014 Bond Measure to add space for the 4000 new students. And then they tell us that they're adding portables because they don't want to "over build" and end up with too much space! Do they listen to themselves talk?

Both Redmond High School and Redmond Middle School were at capacity for 2012-2013 with more overcrowding expected when classes start this fall. Halls are crowded. Lunchroom, library and restroom facilities are inadequate - and more students will end up in portables. It's too bad since taxpayers have spent a lot of money over the past 15 years on new buildings all over the district. Students deserve better than portables.

Here's an idea - the Washington Cathedral Site at the corner of NE 124th Street and Redmond-Woodinville Road is for sale. It includes a 50,000 square foot building on 15.5 acres for $19,500,000. The district normally spends $60 million on a new middle school - built on land that the district already owns. The Washington Cathedral Site includes the building and the land. The 6-Year Capital Facilities Plan shows that the district is budgeting $98,000,000 of the upcoming bond measure for property acquisition and construction of a new middle school that would be ready in 2018. The Washington Cathedral Site could be used as a new middle school. Or it could be used as a K-8 to address overcrowding at Redmond Middle School, Rockwell and Einstein that has been created as the whole North Redmond Corridor is developed into new houses that will add lots of new students. What's great about Washington Cathedral is that it's already built so it could be ready for students in about 2 years. (The district would need to ask Redmond to rezone it for school use and do some remodeling and some traffic mitigation. And if the district provided efficient bussing for all eligible students and started classes at 9:15 AM, traffic would be manageable.) The site is also easily accessible to east Kirkland and the north Avondale area students. How to pay for it? The school district owns 9 acres at the corner NE 122nd Street & 172nd Avenue NE that it could sell for about $9,000,000. (The district is planning to put an elementary school on this site using $34,000,000 from the 2014 bond measure, but do we really need another elementary school half-way between Rockwell and Einstein?) The district also needs to sell 20 acres in the Bear Creek basin and has small surplus parcels around the district that it could sell. 

The district needs space for students in Redmond NOW and the Washington Cathedral Site would easily provide classroom space at a bargain price. 

It's just an idea.

Evans Creek Preserve - A City of Sammamish gem

THE EVANS CREEK PRESERVE

"This is a great place to take your family, yourself, or a friend for a short hike in beautiful open space only 3 miles east of downtown Redmond."  B. Yoder

By Susan Wilkins

Redmond, WA. 

The Evans Creek Preserve, a new park and nature preserve east of Redmond was opened to the public in late 2011 after nearly a decade of planning and a year of intensive trail construction. The preserve is mostly gentle rolling hills with open meadows and forested uplands. It is located in the bottomland of the Evans Creek Basin, a few miles east of Redmond, in the deep southeast trending valley that connects Redmond and Fall City. Evans Creek runs through the north edge of the preserve in an undersized, meandering channel that routinely floods creating swamps and wetland ponds that cover much of the site during the winter. 

We visited in early July and the wetlands were mostly grassy and dry. Evans Creek was running so slowly that we weren’t sure where it was and had to check the map. In the fall, Evans Creek will have native runs of chinook as well as runs of coho and sockeye salmon that will pass through the preserve and spawn upstream.

Owned and developed by the City of Sammamish, the Evans Creek Preserve is located about 3 miles east of downtown Redmond on Redmond-Fall City Road. The 180-acre property was once the farmstead of Newton and Kathryn Galley who passed away in the mid-1990s and willed their property to the University of Washington, Whitman College, Children’s Hospital, the Children’s Home Society, the Masonic Home and Redmond United Methodist Church. These 6 organizations collectively agreed to sell the property to the City of Sammamish in November 2000. The park/preserve was in the planning stage until 2011 when major development of the park and its trail system was undertaken. Old farm buildings were torn down and a new iron-works footbridge over Evans Creek was constructed. Washington Trails Association (wta.org) designated Evans Creek Preserve as one of its major lowland projects for 2011. Volunteer trail-building days were organized by WTA and 250 volunteers spent more than 7000 hours clearing brush, removing stumps, laying gravel trails and building boardwalks and bridges to create nearly 2 miles of trail loops.

To get there: The Evans Creek Preserve is located on the south side of Redmond-Fall City Road (SR202) about a mile east of the SR202/Sahalee Way intersection. Heading east on SR202, look for the sign on the right side of the road that says NE 34th Street – Private Road, turn right and go a short distance down the road. There is a 10-car parking lot with signs and maps.

Sustainable Redmond asks Council to review the City of Redmond's tree protection policy

Sustainable Redmond, led by Board Member Tom Hinman gave a 20 minute "Items From The Audience" presentation to the City Council last night about the rapid loss of tree canopy in Redmond and its ramifications to our environment.  He specifically asked council to remand a staff report back to the Planning Commission for reconsideration of Sustainable Redmond's tree protection amendment to the Comprehensive Plan.  Council will hold a study session on the topic next week. 

Three environmental policy interns and citizen Susan Wilkins contributed to Mr. Hinman's presentation.  They spent hours of research time reviewing 15 development projects in North Redmond, Education Hill, Grasslawn, Group Health and other neighborhoods looking for data that documents harm to the environment from excessive tree removal practices.  Tree preservation findings from 2010-2013 showed 3,510 significant trees and 382 landmark trees were removed from these projects. Only Bear Creek neighborhood kept 100% of their landmark trees.  One intern calculated 6 million gallons/year of stormwater is untreated, 550 tons of carbon/year is unsequestered, and $179,000 value is lost per year by removal of these trees.  Loss of tree canopy is now considered a significant indicator of environmental health.  Read More >>

LETTER: The planning steps LWSD needs to consider

Susan Wilkins said...

My suggestion that school construction on the west side of the district should have instead occurred on the east side re-ignited the debate about east versus west in the district. I didn't mean to imply that the east side is more deserving of construction. I believe we should carefully focus our construction money where it's needed most and in proportion to what is actually needed.

What I am dismayed at is that so many schools in the district have been torn down and completely rebuilt - and most of those schools happened to be on the west side of the district and were still in fairly good condition. When we voted we were told that these schools would be "modernized" and I thought that meant updated or remodeled. To me, modernization means replacement of aging plumbing, electrical, lighting, doors, windows, carpeting/flooring, etc. But the school district figured out that they could justify tearing down and replacing the buildings if they added enough new features and space requirements that it would cost as much to remodel as it would to rebuild. What started out as a sensible district-wide remodeling schedule has morphed into a total teardown mentality with plans to replace every school in the district. The school district routinely spends an outrageous $35,000,000 tearing down and rebuilding elementary schools and insists on calling it modernization! Bell, Keller, Juanita and Thoreau Elementaries each have about 300 students and are only partially full. These schools are all brand new and were rebuilt even as schools elsewhere in the district were flooded with students who ended up in villages of portables.

At the same time, it is very clear that Juanita High School has a multitude of maintenance issues that have been neglected for years. Lighting, heating, ventilation and electrical systems are all in need of updating and basic maintenance. Has Juanita High School not had any maintenance because the school district just assumes it will tear the school down? Can Juanita High School be updated without tearing the building down or is it so inherently flawed that it is beyond repair?

Long-term, central planning (or lack of it) seems to be at the root of the school district's problems. The district has built 19 brand new school buildings in the past 15 years, but they have never figured out how to match student populations with space availability. (Should I remind everyone that Wilder was left half empty while Rosa Parks overflowed with students!) Transportation planning and facilities planning are both managed by the same department and bussing is a mess. Short (2-3 mile) bus rides can take 45 minutes and bus stops are often far from students' homes. (Although the district manages to provide a bus that takes students from Redmond Ridge across to ICS in Kirkland in just 25 minutes.) The school district has the names, addresses and grade levels of all the students in the school district and they could use planning software to balance student populations AND to transport students efficiently and quickly to their schools. (The district must coordinate transportation planning and facilities management to make it work.) The school district tells us that moving school boundaries is "tricky". Well, it is tricky, but with computers and well-designed software (try ESRI's ArcGIS series), it is very possible. Big companies like Microsoft have facilities planners to manage their many employees in many buildings. FedEx, UPS and the Post Office have delivery route planners. Maybe LWSD should call up these companies and ask for some planning advice.

By Susan Wilkins, Education Hill, Redmond

LETTER: LWSD needs to plan sensibly and carefully when they ask voters for more money.

Susan Wilkins said...

What many people don’t realize is that when a developer applies for a permit to build new houses or a new apartment or condo complex in Redmond, the school district is automatically informed that new development will take place. For many years, the Lake Washington School District would have its attorney send a letter to the city and the developer demanding the payment of school impact fees for each house/condo/apartment that would be built. The letter was signed by the school superintendent and the developer could not continue with the permitting process until an agreement to pay was signed and registered with the county. A few years ago (~2008), the City of Redmond changed the policy and automatically required the developer to agree to the impact fees and then collected the fees and forwarded them to the school district as part of the planning process. In the past decade, the school district has received millions of dollars in impact fees and has been informed about every unit of housing that has been built.

All along the school district has known about the new apartments and condos that are being built in downtown Redmond. They knew about the thousands of houses being built in North Redmond and out at Redmond Ridge East. They knew that hundreds of new students would soon be enrolling at the schools. Instead of systematically tearing down and rebuilding all the school on their 1998 and 2006 “modernization” lists (with most of those rebuilt schools located on the west side of the district where little growth was occurring), the school district should have reallocated money and built or expanded schools on the east side of the district for all the new students who were moving into the new houses, condos and apartments.

The school district is once again sounding the alarm that classrooms are overcrowded and schools are running out of space. They want taxpayers to fund another round of tear-down/rebuild “modernization” and they also want to add two new elementary schools for $80,000,000, one at Redmond Ridge and the other in north Redmond at the corner of NE 122nd Street & 172nd Avenue NE. The trouble is that the school district is $500,000,000 in debt for the past 15 years of construction (plus another $240,000,000 in interest). There are limits to how much debt the school district can take on, and with the district’s current rate of construction spending, it will soon reach that limit. ***If taxes for bond payments rise too high, lower priority bonds for libraries and parks will be suspended.***

The construction spending spree that the district has been on for the past 15 years needs to end and the district needs to plan sensibly and carefully if/when it asks voters for more money. They need to take an inventory of facilities and classroom space that they already have and reallocate it more efficiently and effectively.

LETTER: The Office of Superintendent of Instruction appears to have erred on transportation efficiency ratings

Susan Wilkins said...

Being familiar with school bus transportation here in Redmond and having recently written about how bus transportation could be improved, it seemed odd that the OSPI would rate the Lake Washington Transportation Department at 100% efficient.

I visited the OSPI website and reviewed the supporting documents and reports that were posted with the school district transportation department efficiency ratings. The OSPI’s Efficiency Detail Report for the Lake Washington School District listed LWSD as having 12,924 basic riders and 1,210 special ed riders. (Total bus riders: 14,134) It also noted that the district had spent $7,532,315 on transportation in the 2011-2012 school year and determined that the school district’s relative efficiency rating was 100%. The Lake Washington School District has only 25,400 students. The idea that more than 14,000 students ride buses to school each day is hard to believe.  Read More >>

LETTER: Where will the children moving into downtown Redmond go to school?

Susan Wilkins said...

Where are the children from the new apartments and condos in downtown Redmond supposed to go to school? Redmond Elementary is already near capacity with 401 students and Redmond Middle School is seriously overcrowded with 970 students. Nearly 400 elementary students from the east side of Redmond (Woodbridge, Evans Creek & Hidden Ridge) are bused out to Dickinson Elementary and Alcott Elementary every day. Both of these schools are more than 3 miles outside the city limits. Students from River Trail, north of QFC, are bussed up to Rockwell Elementary. It seems like the vision for downtown Redmond is walkability - walk to shops, walk to parks, walk to entertainment, walk to the transit center. But walk to school? Forget-about-it! Why hasn’t the City of Redmond told the school district to plan for students living in the downtown area and insisted that they build schools to meet the walkability model that is being developed?

The school district says that there isn’t enough land available to build schools in downtown Redmond. Note that Lake Washington Institute of Technology (LWIT) built a satellite campus next to Marymoor Park in 2004 and DigiPen just moved into its new campus along Willows Road last year. A number of churches/religious groups have converted warehouses in the industrial areas that are comparable to a typical school in size and space usage. Redmond could really use another elementary and a middle school downtown (or maybe a K-8) that residents could walk to.

Bob Yoder has hit a nerve when asking what the future identity of downtown Redmond is going to be. Maybe the plan is to create a thriving, exciting downtown for Yuppies (young urban professionals) and DINKs (Dual Income, No Kids) in which case, downtown schools will not be needed. If children are supposed to be part of downtown Redmond, then the City needs to open a dialogue with the school district about where they will go to school within the City limits – and insist that the schools be located where children can actually walk to school.

By Susan Wilkins, Education Hill, Redmond

 

Letter: Improvements needed for LWSD busing

Susan Wilkins said...

The Lake Washington School District will spend $7,500,000 this year busing 8,500 K-12 students and 500 special-needs students to school. This is an astounding amount of money to transport relatively few students. Many people assume that providing additional bus transportation to Redmond Middle School will cost taxpayers even more money. This would be true if the school district were already providing highly efficient bus service, but an unofficial audit of the LWSD Transportation Department in 2011 found significant inefficiencies in the department. Although the school district had 85 full-size buses, only 65 were regularly scheduled with the rest being reserved for break-downs, replacements and field trips. And although the schools had staggered start times (high schools - 7:30 AM, junior highs - 8:00 AM, elementary - 8:30 & 9:00 AM) only 7 of the full size buses were efficiently scheduled to provide service to 4 schools each day. Most buses were scheduled for 2 regular routes per day. Buses were frequently assigned to schools on opposite sides of the district so that a lot of time was spent traveling across the district without passengers. Sometimes buses sat idle for 20 minutes between routes. Currently, bus routes are so poorly planned that students have to be at their assigned bus stops an hour before school starts and then ride bizarrely long routes on their way to school. Many parents give up on bus transportation and simply drive their children to school. (Note: these students live too far to walk.) Far too often, buses end up being only partially full. If the district planned the schedule for each bus more efficiently, with each bus carrying a full load of students and servicing 4 schools per day, then capacity would be increased without adding more busses or drivers. More importantly, with more students riding buses, the school district would receive significantly more than the $4,000,000 that it receives from the state in transportation reimbursement funds annually.

The LWSD Transportation Department has a bloated bureaucracy with one director and two supervisors earning a combined $240,000 per year. They have an additional 6 support staff who earn another $300,000. With more than $500,000 spent on transportation routing staff, it’s hard to believe how poorly planned so many of the bus routes are. Does anyone in the school district have any formal education in transportation planning? I have asked about this multiple times but the school district will simply say that their supervisors “have years of experience and are highly qualified.” According to Glenn Gorton, program supervisor for student transportation at the OSPI, “The state of Washington does not have any specific qualifications for Transportation Directors” ... “The hiring practices and qualifications for the individual school districts are handled on the local level and the local districts have the latitude to hire as they feel meets their needs.”   

 

Bus routing and trip planning software is available, but it requires a technology background and specialized training in order to get maximum efficiency. Providing training for the existing staff or hiring a seasoned computer-based transportation planner would save the school district thousands, if not millions of dollars, and many more students would be bused to school each day. 

There is a bright spot for possible transportation improvements on Education Hill. Students can ride Metro buses to school and LWSD will pay for bus passes for eligible students. Metro Bus #221 serves the Education Hill area but the bus route is not well synchronized with school start and end times. (How often do we see the bus traveling up and down 166th Avenue NE nearly empty?) Metro annually takes input and requests for route/schedule changes. I have asked the City of Redmond to work on morning and afternoon route changes that will coincide with school start and end times with the primary focus on helping students utilize Metro buses as an alternate transportation choice for getting to and from RMS and RHS. (This change would not take effect this school year.)

 

By Susan Wilkins

Education Hill and PTSA member

Letter: Total costs for STEM School, Eastlake, Redmond High additions have far exceeded the 2011 Levy

By Susan Wilkins

According to the school board's last consent agenda, which listed the contract amount for the STEM School, it occurred me that the total costs for the STEM School and the Eastlake and Redmond High School Additions have far exceeded the 2011 levy. The 3 school projects were to cost $65.6 million.  Read More >>

Letter about traffic at Redmond Middle School - Updated with new comments

LETTER ABOUT TRAFFIC AT REDMOND MIDDLE SCHOOL

By Susan Wilkins

The Redmond Municipal Code states:

10.52.145 Fire lanes.

(a) Fire Lane Parking Prohibited.

(1) No person shall stop, stand or park a vehicle or maintain any obstruction within any fire lane.

The drop-off lanes in the two parking lots in front of Redmond Middle School are designated FIRE LANES so it is illegal for parents to pull into the lanes and drop off their students or to wait for them at the end of school.

The pick-up/drop-off lanes in the RMS parking lots were improperly designed when the school was rebuilt in 2002 but the Redmond Police and Fire Departments never made an issue of the defect or required the school district to fix it. I wrote a letter to the City of Redmond Police Department last fall 2012 asking them to address the Fire Lane violations at the front of Redmond Middle School. Greg Palmer who does Traffic Calming for the City phoned me to discuss the issue. Basically he said that the City wasn’t going to do anything about it because it had been that way for so long. He also said – and this is significant - that nobody had complained about it. I noted that I had just filed a complaint and that was why he was calling me! Apparently, one complaint isn’t enough. So everybody, call or email and COMPLAIN to the City of Redmond. Tell them to fix the traffic mess at Redmond Middle School !!!

SHORT TERM SOLUTION: The school already has a driveway that leads from the south parking lot and wraps around the back of the building where the busses drop off students. Parents could drive around the back and drop off students without obstructing the fire lanes. The school district should also hire certified traffic flaggers to direct traffic in and out of the parking lot driveways and onto the streets (like they do at Rosa Parks Elementary.) 

LONG TERM SOLUTION: The City of Redmond should require the school district to redesign their parking lot and entrance/exit configuration so that parents are not using the fire lanes for pick-up and drop off. The redesign should also accommodate the 400+ cars that pass through the school’s lot every morning so that back-ups don’t cause total obstruction and traffic chaos on 166^th Avenue NE and NE 104^th Street. Redmond Middle School is located on a 24-acre parcel with the school building squeezed onto the northeast corner of the lot. There is plenty of extra space on the property to relocate entrances/exits, driveways, drop-off zones and parking lots.

Two years ago I posted a video of the typical driving antics that occur at RMS/RJH every morning. You can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4a4aG05O44. We wouldn’t tolerate traffic like this from a WalMart, would we?

A more important question to ask is why are so many students being driven to school every morning? Where are all the Lake Washington School District buses? If the school district provided quality, efficient bus service to the outlying neighborhoods along NE 116^thStreet to the north, along NE 104^th Street to the east and along 166^thAvenue NE down the hill to the south, car traffic through the parking lots would be significantly reduced. It used to be that students had to live more than 1 radius-mile from the school to be eligible for school bus transportation, but in September 2011, the Legislature changed the bussing formula and any student who has to walk more than a mile along existing streets became eligible for bus transportation. The LWSD Transportation website still says that students must live outside a 1-mile radius in order to be eligible for bus transportation. The school district needs to wake up and read the RCW (28A.160.160) and start providing bus service to students who are eligible under the new 1-mile walk route guidelines and not under the old 1-mile radius rule!!!

Even if the school district adds more bus transportation to Redmond Middle School and reduces the traffic backups on 166^thAvenue and 104^th Street, the practice of using the fire lanes as drop-off and pick-up lanes is illegal and needs to stop. Someday there is going to be an emergency at RMS or at a nearby residence and the fire trucks and ambulances will not be able to get through in time.

Please take a moment and contact the City of Redmond and tell them to fix the Redmond Middle School traffic problems. Contacts are listed below.

Mayor John Marchione: mayor@redmond.gov

Redmond City Council Members: council@redmond.gov

Redmond Traffic: https://www.redmond.gov/PublicSafety/Police/traffic_concern_form/

 

By Susan Wilkins