School district holds public forum on bond
November 13, 2008
By Laura Geggel
About 50 students, teachers and community members discussed the Snoqualmie Valley School District’s options for addressing crowding at a public forum Nov. 6 at Mount Si High School. The district held the forum before the school board voted whether or not they would put a $34.2 million bond before voters March 10.
If it were passed, the bond would fund 18 double modular classrooms for the elementary and middle school and pay for repairs and upgrades to existing school buildings. The board has postponed putting a second high school and sixth elementary school on the ballot.
“We’ve pushed those out on the horizon,” Superintendent Joel Aune said. “Part of that depends on more fully utilizing our schools’ capacity.”
Although student growth has slowed to 2 percent this year — in the past it was as high as 6 percent — the district said new families moving to the phase II development on Snoqualmie Ridge could cause a sharp student population increase. When this happens, the district will need space to accommodate these students.
Aune presented several options the district could implement to avoid crowding and reorganize student distribution. Following Aune’s presentation, the audience broke into smaller discussion groups that were headed by members of the school board.
One option would transform part or all of Snoqualmie Middle School into a satellite campus for the high school. All middle school students would attend either Chief Kanim or Twin Falls, a solution unsettling to some community members.
Snoqualmie Middle School P.E. and health teacher Jerry Maher noted the population boom from the elementary schools would hit the middle schools first. He said common spaces — including hallways and gyms — would be stressed if the district were downgraded to two instead of three middle schools.
“I think we’re taking an issue at the high school and moving it to the middle school,” Maher said.
Jerry Hillburn, the technology teacher at Snoqualmie Middle School, said he worried a crowded middle school would be more chaotic than a crowded high school because of student maturity.
Snoqualmie Middle School music director Dean Snavely said he would support the district “if we can know for sure they can accommodate, not just fit, the populations at the middle schools.”
Aune reviewed other options proposed by the Facilities Task Force. They included transitioning the elementary schools to include grades kindergarten through sixth, having grades seven through nine at the junior high level and 10 through 12 at the high school.
But three of the five elementary schools, with the exception of Opstad and North Bend Elementary, have no space for the sixth grade.
Other reconfigurations dominated the discussion of managing short-term crowding.
The district considered making an academy for gifted students to help mitigate the Mount Si population. But the state has requirements, such as graduation rates for magnet schools, and the number of students attending could substantially vary year to year.
“This particular solution might provide relief to the overcrowding at Mount Si, but it would depend on the number of students who enrolled in that specialized program,” Aune said.
Yet another option would shift Chief Kanim Middle School into a sixth through 12 facility, “which would essentially create a smaller high school in the Chief Kanim school,” Aune said.
Double shifting could alleviate crowding, too. But Aune said splitting the high school into a morning and afternoon school with 700 students apiece had little allure. Transportation costs would double, as would supplies for programs.
“We’ve talked about double shifting, but we did not spend much time talking about it,” Aune said. Still, he got a laugh from the audience when he acknowledged, “This solution does more fully utilize the facility. It gets an A-plus.”
The school board will look at all of the comments from the forum discussion groups before making a decision about putting the bond before voters. The next school board meeting will be held at the district office, 8001 Silva Ave S.E., Snoqualmie at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13
Reach reporter Laura Geggel at 392-6434 .221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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I am here at a forum newcomer. Until I read and deal with the forum.
Let’s learn!