A group of 10 solved a challenging puzzle for the Tahoma School District and the answer is pink.

As in the pink option of five proposals to adjust elementary school boundaries in the district which will be effective this fall.

During the course of a few months and a number of meetings, both as a group and a pair to gather public input in April, the committee unanimously selected the pink option because it was the closest to ideal.

Rick Downer, who served on the committee because he had the time and “our family values community service,” said the pink option was the committee’s first choice.

The committee first evaluated the numbers provided to them and validated the recommendation to move 40 students from Glacier Park and 80 from Lake Wilderness then move 40 into Shadow Lake and 80 into Rock Creek.

“They explained the enrollment trends, they explained current enrollment,” said committee member Karri LaBree. “They presented a lot of data to us and they asked the committee based on the goals to decide on the criterion for what makes a good plan.”

LaBree said she volunteered to serve on the committee because she is passionate about the issue since she lives on the outskirts of the district’s boundaries, but also because she wanted to do what was right for the community and what is best for the kids.

“It was more difficult than I possibly imagined,” she said.

Once they had the data they worked through things individually, in small groups then all together, LaBree said.

“Then we looked for neighborhoods of roughly those sizes that were on the existing boundaries,” Downer said. “We didn’t want to move ‘islands’ of students surrounded by kids who would attend a different school. We initially found the Pink plan, but were told that for transportation reasons we could not split up the students on Wax Road. This led to the development of the other four plans, which all involved moving some students out of either Rock Creek or Shadow Lake in order to move more students in for the net move we were after.”

At the last minute, though, they were told that Wax Road could be split for transportation and the ink plan was officially submitted.

“All of the (other) plans took some kids out of schools that needed kids,” LaBree said. “We went back to pink because it only added students to schools that needed kids and didn’t take any out. Once you ran it through our weighting, it was the clear winner.”

All five of the plans proposed moved a group of students who live in the Lake Retreat area in Ravensdale from Glacier Park to Rock Creek.

“I’m just sorry there was no other option for moving students our of Glacier Park,” Downer said. “Glacier Park is surrounded by such dense housing that there simply aren’t any 40 student neighborhoods, even moving an ‘island’ of students. We couldn’t even come up with a plan to move a larger number out of Glacier Park and a smaller number in with a net effect of moving 40 out.”

Particularly acute overcrowding has occurred in the southern part of the district with 900 students at Glacier Park while Lake Wilderness has 980 students. Meanwhile, Shadow Lake has 530 students and Rock Creek is at 820.

If the district didn’t make any boundary adjustments for the coming school year the overcrowding would only become worse according to district officials.

There is hope, however, that adjustment will the last for some time.

This will be the fourth elementary boundary change in the past seven years, with adjustments done in 2003, 2005 and again in 2007.

A long term solution would be to construct a fifth elementary school.

Building another elementary school, however, is a separate issue the Tahoma Board of Directors will have to take up later this year. That is currently in the planning phase as the board prepares to decide on how to proceed.

Final adoption by the school board will come at its May 11 meeting.

LaBree said the process was worth going through despite the challenge it presented.

“Tahoma School District really had its act together and was well organized and very supportive, “LaBree said. “They didn’t try to influence us in any particular way. They gave the committee the independence to work the issue and gave us the support that we needed. Everybody had the interest of the children and the community and the school district at the top of mind. It was a very refreshing experience and I’d do it again despite the fact it was challenging.”