The Lake Washington School District committee charged with developing proposed new boundaries for elementary schools on the Sammamish plateau has released six initial draft scenarios for the boundaries. Parent and community input is being sought through a Web-based survey that will be available from December 1 through December 12.

“The committee looked at many ways to group and regroup neighborhoods,” noted committee chair Dr. Cindy Lundvall. “These six possible scenarios came the closest to meeting the criterion most important to parents in our last survey, which was to redistribute enrollment numbers to match school capacity, particularly as student populations are expected to grow. We tried to use natural boundaries and keep neighborhoods together as much as possible.”

All six scenarios include moving approximately 100 students who live on the plateau and are in the Quest program for highly capable students to McAuliffe Elementary. The district determined there is a need for full-time Quest classrooms on the plateau, relieving the need to send these students to another area of the district. Classroom space for Quest classes requires readjustment due to the growth in enrollment in the schools that currently house these students. The capacity summary for McAuliffe reflects four fewer classrooms available in order to reserve four classrooms for this program.

Each scenario is presented here, with a brief description of the changes to current boundaries and a map of the potential boundaries. A chart shows how the enrollments would change for each school from 08-09 through the 2014-2015 school year. The classrooms needed in each school to serve that enrollment number is also listed. These projections have been developed using current student enrollment information, King County birth records, and information on planned and proposed housing developments. As with all projections, the enrollment numbers for the earlier years are more likely to be in close range to those actually achieved, while later years may see wider variation from these projected numbers.

As a result, some of the scenarios may show a school going over capacity by one classroom for one or more of the later years in the projections, as indicated by the shaded areas on the chart. “We want to make sure that the final boundaries for 08-09 do not anticipate any changes within the next four years,” noted Dr. Lundvall. “However, we can’t be sure that the numbers will go exactly as projected, especially farther out into the future. We need to be prepared that boundary adjustments could be needed again in four to five years, depending on development and population growth.”

Parents and community members are encouraged to review the documentation posted here before doing the survey. Maps will be available on the survey itself but not all the detail of enrollment and capacity projections. After receiving the input on these draft scenarios, the committee will narrow the list of scenarios under consideration to those that will then be discussed at public meetings in January.

Boundary Scenario A

Boundary Scenario B

Boundary Scenario C

Boundary Scenario D

Boundary Scenario E

Boundary Scenario F