The district completed a Limited General Obligation bond sale in May 2020 for $75 million in order to front-fund the these critical capacity projects. Bonds will be paid back with the levy proceeds that are collected over the next six years. Program spending picked up over the summer as the LWHS addition was completed; elementary exterior cameras were installed; and elementary additions and entry control projects began. Of the total planned expenditures of $144 million, $33 million has been spent.

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Construction at Ben Franklin Elementary, Mark Twain Elementary and Rose Hill Elementary is scheduled to begin this summer. The three schools are receiving classroom additions funded by the 2019 Capital Projects Levy.

Updated construction schedules, designs and supply routes will be posted on each school’s project page later this month.

Construction at Rachel Carson Elementary will begin in 2021.

On April 30, 2020, Lake Washington School District (LWSD) sold a total of $118.85 million of tax-exempt refunding bonds, which will refinance $134 million of its existing debt, to take advantage of lower market interest rates. The refinancing will save the district’s taxpayers more than $18.6 million over the next nine years.

Energy-efficient design saves money in the long run. To implement energy-efficient features into its construction projects, Lake Washington School District (LWSD) applied for grants from Puget Sound Energy (PSE). The projects received grants that totaled $261,978.

Lake Washington School District (LWSD) staff regularly meets with representatives from Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish to determine what new housing projects have been permitted and what that will mean for enrollment growth in our schools.

In addition, this year, LWSD worked with Flo Analytics, an outside planning, GIS and data-analytic consulting firm, to prepare long-range enrollment projections. Flo Analytics staff were complimentary of the district’s enrollment projection work to date, including the level of planning and detail they maintained.