Kathryn, thanks for the emails keeping me (and others) updated. So, of course, I have questions.
1) Currently I show there are 151 portables being used in the District at various schools. How many are proposed to be added in the next few years until the proposed bond-funded buildings are complete? If you could break it down by school, that would be great.
With the opening of several newly modernized schools this year, there are fewer portables since those schools opened with zero portables and portables were removed from their campuses. There were 148 classrooms in portables in use in 2012-13. (The 2013 capital facilities plan reported 140, but that did not count the 8 classrooms in four portables at Redmond High that were considered temporary. Those portables have since been added to the inventory.) Over the summer, 22 classrooms in portables were removed due to modernization at Bell, Community, Rush, ICS, Rose Hill Middle and Stella Schola. Two were added at Redmond Middle School. So there was a net reduction of classrooms in portables by 20 to 128 for 2013-14.
Ten portables will be added this summer to accommodate the additional students coming in. There will be four added at Wilder, four at Mann and two at Redmond Elementary School. We do not have any plans for portables beyond those additions. Should the April bond fail, I expect that will change.
2) What is the “life” of a portable and what happens to them after they aren’t used any more. For instance, the portables at the “old” Horace Mann; what happened to them?
The reasonable life-cycle for a portable is approximately 30 years+. Many of the LWSD portables are older than that.
In regards to what happens to old portables or portables that are not needed. There are several options:
i. If needed elsewhere in the district, portables might be moved to a different school.
ii. If not needed, the district follows the state requirement to surplus the assets.
1. The surplus process requires finding out if other districts/schools might have a need for the portables
2. If no other district/school has need nor wants the portables, then the district can have others bid to take them
3. In some cases portables are deemed to be not in good enough shape to offer to other districts/schools or have others bid on them. In these cases, the portables are demolished.
3) How much of the proposed bond issue contains money for portables to get us by until the new schools are built? What will be done with those portables when the new schools are built?
The proposed bond does not have any portables at all in it for handling capacity needs at schools until new schools are built. If it turns out that portables are needed to house students for project phasing, then those portables would be incorporated into the budget for that project. As for what would happen to them after the school is built, see the answer above.
4) What is the plan for the “leftover” $10million-ish referenced in this document?
Good question. The school board has expressed interest, if the bond passes, in using some of it, perhaps $3 million, to partner with the city of Kirkland on a new indoor swimming pool. The pool at Juanita High School is at the end of its useful life and the school board believes that recreation facilities are the city’s responsibility but we do need access to a pool for high school swim team practices. (Kirkland is in fact in a planning process to add a pool now.)
The board will have to make a decision on what to do with the rest of the money. If the bond passes, it could be used to begin the design and planning processes for those projects. If that means we don’t have to use all of the $404 million in bonds, we won’t sell all of them, which will save taxpayers money. If the bond fails to pass, the board may decide to use the money to help house all those students, through portables or some other means.
Note: in addition to the $10-12 million we may have left over from bond sales, we actually did not sell $12 million in bonds from the 2006 measure, which saves taxpayers the money to pay back the bonds and to pay interest on them.
By the way, I saw your posting on your website and I’d like to provide information that answers some of the questions you posed there and correct some misinformation. Here is a link to the details on the bond measure, which was posted shortly after the measure was proposed :
It includes the building square feet and the number of students total capacity.
Please also note that the STEM school currently has 436 students, not 300. Next year, it will add one more class of 150 students and be near its total capacity.
Impact fees were used for portables at Rosa Parks Elementary School because the 2010 bond did not pass and the new Redmond Ridge East elementary school therefore was not built. Remember that when Rosa Parks was built, an entire classroom wing sat empty. Students eventually did come and the school more than filled up. Students do not arrive from developments in neat sets that can fill a new school and we have found that voters are reluctant to fund new schools when they don’t see the real evidence, i.e., actual students, that they are needed. In the meantime, portables are often the only option we have.
We have announced the sites for the two Redmond Elementary Schools. That information is in the district’s capital facility plan, which is posted on the district website here. We have not announced the locations for the Kirkland elementary and the Redmond middle school because we have not purchased property yet, although we are trying to. We are not trying to hide anything: we simply don’t have anything to announce yet.
Boundaries will be set for the entire Redmond Learning community in a public process if the measure passes. That is the standard procedure for our district and every other school district.
The district asked for many of these projects in 2010 and was turned down by the community. We told the community the need would be coming. I find it ironic that the district is being accused of poor planning when the planning work was done, the community was told that more students were coming and the request was made but turned down. A small request for the most immediate needs was passed in 2011. It is now 2014, three years later, and the students the district predicted were coming are arriving in droves.
The Redmond High School portables were affected by a generous variance process that allowed many Eastlake students to attend Redmond High when it was not their home school. That policy has been changed and many Eastlake students who applied for a variance for next year were turned down.
Paige, please do continue to send questions my way. I will get the answers to this set as soon as I can.
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