Thank you for the generally excellent coverage of the school district reboundary process. This has been a long and arduous process, and as the board member representing southern Kirkland, I do appreciate the attention that the community has given to this issue.

Redrawing the boundaries for our schools in order to rebalance enrollment across facilities is not unprecedented, but neither is it capricious nor likely to happen again for many years. In the 11 years that my children have been at Lakeview, this is the first time that it has happened.

Specifically regarding your article in this evening’s paper, Mrs. Androski’s concerns are somewhat misplaced. The real concern that the Lakeview community needs to come to grips with is not that another reboundary will happen in the next few years, but rather that another reboundary will not happen anytime soon, and we are going to have to live with the consequences of the current process for many years. At Lakeview, it is worth noting that Mrs. Androski’s preferred scenario 2 leads to overcrowding that will be significantly worse by 2017 than it is at present, and I know that our wonderful principal is already fielding many complaints about class size.

The only long term facilities option that can truly alleviate overcrowding in our schools is construction of new facilities. Our district’s student body is growing by 500 students a year, equivalent to one elementary school, yet the last new elementary school that we opened (Carson Elementary) was back in 2011. The present reboundary process will not alleviate overcrowding, it merely distributes the problem more evenly, making the best possible use of existing facilities until we can find a long term solution.

Simply put, the long term solution to our overcrowding problem is new schools. Sadly, our last three attempts to pass a bond that would allow us to construct new schools have not reached the 60 percent supermajority needed to do so. The next time a school construction bond comes up, voters in our district need to support it even more enthusiastically than they have in the past, so that we can get over the 60 percent supermajority threshold. Even under the most optimistic scenarios of developing a bond proposal, taking it to the electorate, and passing the bond, no new elementaries are likely to open before 2018. Until then our community will be living with the consequences of the present reboundary process. It is going to be uncomfortable, but we can get through it if we all understand the bigger problem, and work together to solve it.

Dr. Christopher Carlson, Director, District 2, LWSD