The Tahoma Ad Hoc Student Housing Committee met for five months. After review of information provided by the district about enrollment, the failure of the construction bond measure and the alternatives the district has considered to manage overcrowded classrooms, the committee submitted a report to the district’s Board of Directors on Nov. 8.
Below are some of the suggestions offered by the committee in no particular order. The group did not prioritize any of its recommendations to the board.
Short-term solutions:
Recommendation one:
Create additional capacity at elementary schools by converting computer labs and music rooms to home rooms and eliminating all day kindergarten.
Recommendation two:
Use Central Service Center for classrooms and house the district functions in rental spaces in the community.
Recommendation three:
Identify a program offering that keeps 120 junior students at one or both middle schools. This pushes the need for space at the junior high forward without creating significant capacity issues at the middle schools in the short term.
Recommendation four:
Move 120 students from the junior high to the Central Services Center.
Recommendation five: Move 30 to 95 students from the junior high to the high school.
Recommendation six:
Create high school space by encouraging early graduation, online learning and enrollment in Running Start.
Recommendation Seven:
Use Russell Ridge Center portables to house junior high students.
Recommendation eight:
Implement a year-round, multi-track model in the year that enrollment exceeds established building capacity.
Long-term solutions:
• Run the April 2011 bond measure again, if it passes the problem is solved, if not then go to year-round, multi-track double-shifting schedules.
• Take a new approach by creating K-5 schools, two sixth through eighth grade schools and one ninth through 12th grade high school. This would reduce to the bond amount to $98 million and the committee recommends timing it to kick in when the 1997 bond is paid off in 2016. This would cover construction only.
• Try multiple elections. Run a $12 million levy in the spring to pay for high priority projects that will deal with the “warm, safe and dry” needs of the district. A levy needs a simple majority, or 50 percent plus one, versus a bond measure which needs a 60 percent supermajority minimum to pass. Then run a $90 million bond in the spring of 2013 followed by the replacement operations and technology levies in 2014 and a $23 million 6-year levy in for low and medium priority projects such as the performing arts auditorium and athletic facility improvements.
• Run a scaled-back bond measure by reducing the elements included in the April election and retain the “warm, safe and dry” elements of the bond, which would reduce the dollar amount by $15 million.
Enrollment projections
It is worth noting that enrollment data available in October 2010 showed Tahoma Junior High would hit maximum capacity in 2014, with other schools reaching enrollment limits in the succeeding years, however data available in late October of this year shows enrollment is growing at a slower rate. The junior high is expected to hit capacity in 2019 instead while elementary school capacity is expected to max out in 2017. District officials stated that Tahoma schools are already crowded beyond what the buildings were designed for and “maximum enrollment” is the absolute limit for a school.
The 21-page report in its entirety is available on the Tahoma School District website, www.tahomasd.us.
Source: The Tahoma School District
