A rchitects suggest swapping the populations of Tahoma Junior High and Tahoma High School to help solve the district’s severe overcrowding problem.
A student and an adult walk into Tahoma Junior High on Friday morning, March 9. Architects suggest this building, opened in 2001, become the district's high school. The current high school was built in 1972, with some renovations in 1999.
Architects from the DLR Group, who had been asked to offer creative ideas for using existing space or offer new building concepts, presented three options to the Tahoma school board during a study session this week.
Each of the three options included moving students from the junior high, which is the newest but also the most crowded school in the district, to the current high school building. The district would then build an addition onto the current junior high to essentially double its size so that it could become the district’s high school.
“What you’re getting in the end is a much larger, brand-new high school,” Karen Montovino, an architect with DLR, told the board. Montovino and the DLR Group, which has been ranked as the world’s largest school design firm, have been working with Tahoma since 2008 to find solutions to its overcrowding problems.
The idea is to make a change that will affect the greatest number of current students, Montovino said, and swapping the high school and junior high will do that while still relieving immediate overcrowding.
Two of the three options involved changing the district’s grade-level configurations — most notably adding ninth grade in the high school, which currently begins in tenth grade.
“I do believe it would be very well received” in the community, said school board member Bill Clausmeyer.
The condition and age of the portables is pretty startling
Superintendent Mike Maryanski noted that few high schools use a 10-12 model anymore, and the ninth graders at the junior high have expressed frustration about participating in classes, sports and activities meant for high school students.
“We’re teaching high school classes at the ninth grade, so it just makes more sense programmatically,” Maryanski said. “Up there, it would be more supported.”
The board is looking for answers after Maple Valley rejected a construction bond measure last April. The $125 million bond needed 60 percent approval but earned only 53 percent.
Meanwhile, the Tahoma school district offers the lowest square footage per student in King County. It also has the lowest capital facilities bond average at about $14,000 per student, with Auburn second to last at about $38,000 and Bellevue first at $367,000. Two earlier Tahoma construction bonds also failed — in 2004 and 2001. Even the failed April bond had been postponed twice.
Tahoma’s enrollment has grown faster since 1985 than any King County district other than Issaquah. All buildings in the district except the middle schools are now full beyond their designed capacity, and the most optimistic projections show that by 2020, all but the middle schools will be full past their legal maximum.
The earliest any new bond could run would be this November, but the board is leaning against repeating the same bond measure. Maryanski noted at this week’s study session that last April’s bond functioned essentially as a referendum on Maple Valley’s satisfaction with the status quo — because the bond didn’t propose changes to grade-level groupings or building usage beyond constructing a fifth elementary.
“We said, ‘If you like who we are … we can’t do it with the existing spaces. Vote for this bond measure and our program will be seamless,’ ” he said.
Because the community voted it down, the district should see that vote as a message to explore new ideas such as altering grade-level groupings and shifting buildings, Maryanski said.
One thing that won’t change noticeably with the architects’ new options is price. District leaders seem to agree that the April bond was so “bare bones” already that the cost can’t come down much. Last fall, an ad hoc committee that looked for cheaper solutions after the bond failed suggested eliminating programs such as P.E., music and technology to free up classroom space and then moving to a year-round, staggered schedule model — as the only alternatives to building.
The district is reaching its legal limit for portable classrooms with 80-plus, and many of them are decrepit.
“The condition and age of the portables is pretty startling in comparison with other districts,” said Montovino.
The architects aren’t suggesting eliminating portables, however. Each of the three options would incorporate up to 47 portables — some of them new replacements — district-wide as a way to keep costs down.
Like the original bond, all of the new options also call for replacing Lake Wilderness Elementary, which the architects say needs so many critical upgrades that they do not believe it can be renovated for less than it can be replaced. Each option also would include the critical upgrades to the existing elementary and middle schools that were part of the original bond.
None of the options would involve building a new stadium, so the high school students — if they move to the junior high — would need to travel back to their old building to play games. Maryanski observed that it’s not unusual for stadiums to be located off site in many districts.
The three options presented this week include:
K-4 Elementaries
- Stick with four elementaries, but drop to K-4 only to reduce space requirements
- Move fifth grade up to the two middle schools, with grades 5 and 6 at the middle schools
- Move seventh grade to the junior high, with grades 7 and 8 to be located on the current high school site
- Move ninth grade to the high school, with grades 9 to 12 to be located on the junior high site with a large addition, more parking and two new practice fields.
Sixth-Grade-Only Middle
- Make Tahoma Middle School a fifth elementary rather than building a new one as proposed in the original bond — and all five elementaries would remain K-5
- Make Cedar River Middle a sixth-grade center for the entire district
- Move seventh grade to the junior high, with grades 7 and 8 to be located on the current high school site
- Move ninth grade to the high school, with grades 9 to 12 to be located on the junior high site with a large addition, more parking and two new practice fields.
Mostly Status Quo
- Build a fifth K-5 elementary adjacent to the junior high, just as the original bond proposed
- Keep the middle schools at grades 6 and 7 as they are now, with a few classrooms added
- Swap the high school and the junior high populations, but maintain the 8-9 and 10-12 grouping, thereby allowing for a smaller, cheaper addition at the junior high than the other two options grant.
The school board did not say which option it favors at this point, if any, and they all would cost about the same. Some members brought up other undeveloped ideas that still need to be investigated.
They did seem to agree that they want to conduct surveys of the community about a new bond measure if one is proposed.
John Fuller, a Kansas City-based marketing specialist for DLR, told the board that no matter how much they believe in an idea, it’s a waste of time and money if the community won’t vote for it. He suggested identifying no more than three viable options, then scientifically surveying likely voters — as opposed to registered voters, parents or the community at large — to determine which one they would most likely support.
A 2008 Tahoma School District survey of registered voters (rather than likely voters) indicated that 69.5 percent of them would vote for a bond measure to add classroom space. In last April’s election, only about half of registered voters mailed in ballots.
Board member Mary Jane Glaser asked Fuller for advice about when to run another bond measure. She noted that the district must present critical technology and operations replacement levies in 2014.
Fuller told the board that running a bond in the same year or even an adjacent year as a levy is a bad idea, so he recommends placing their alternative construction bond before voters by this November.
“You’re burning the midnight oil is what it means.”
What action do you think the school board should take? Post a comment below.
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I have two students here in the Tahoma district, one in elementary and one at TJH. I am ready for something to change, my TJH student can’t stand how crowded the school is and I personally belief in if you are satisfied with your environment, your learning will increase. I also support a performing arts center. Having to listen to concerts in the gym is awful, the creative scheduling that has to be done at TMS (the only stage we have) must be a nightmare and we have many talented students that excel in band, choir and drama at our elementary schools, CRMS, TMS, TJH and THS, they do deserve a center to perform in. I fully supported the bond measure last spring, will fully support a measure in November. I encourage everyone to vote. What I am disappointed in is the sheer number of registered voters who did NOT vote. Shame on you is my thought. Approximately 1/2 of the registered voters actually voted last spring, and approximately a 1/4 of the ones who voted voted down the measure, which means a minority of the voters made this decision for the majority. I still can’t believe knowing what we know in this world, how so many fought so hard to have voting rights in our own country, this is how we treat our right to vote. Chin up Tahoma School District!
As an employee at Lake Wilderness Elementary @Nichole, I have to say, if you’d like to see how our school is held together with spit and bubblegum as it is, you are more than welcome. Our school is over 50 years old, with the last remodel over 20 years ago.
We have rust. Our water runs brown with it.
We have MOLD. I never have allergies until I walk into my own building to work.
We hold our towel dispensers together with duct tape.
My heater has NEVER worked right, no matter how many pieces are replaced. It is either boiling or freezing in my room.
Our roof leaks when it rains, because the last remodel was done so poorly that no roof replacement will solve the problem.
Our floors are warped and cracked from water damage and are a safety hazard.
They don’t make pieces and parts for our boiler anymore, it’s so old.
There is little to no airflow and no a/c, which doesn’t seem like a big deal until YOU try teaching in a room where it’s 97*, according to the thermometer on the wall.
Our portables were purchased for $1 from a district that was desperate to get rid of them because they were so awful. And that was 20 years ago.
And this is just the short list. It’s very easy to say, ‘just fix it’ unless you experience it.
Performing Arts Center, YES PLEASE! Creative thinking is so undervalued in today’s academic culture. Unfortunately it is also going to be one of the most desired traits in the next generation of jobs as technology is developing faster than we can keep up with. Watch one of the most downloaded/viewed TEDTalks of all time by Sir Ken Robinson for more on this topic.
I have to disagree with the amount of the bond measure. You mean to tell me that there is no way to cut $125 million dollars? As I recall, a performing arts center was part of the bond. We do not need a performing arts center. As wonderful as that would be, it isn’t essential. How about repairing the Lake Wilderness elementary instead of buliding a new one. I’m talking about repairs that will work, not top of the line materials and over the top reconstruction. When families are in financial problems, the smart family cut expenses and get by. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, we can add some of these things but what that bond was asking families to do during these trying economic times was crazy.
I think that it is smart to put the highschool as 9-12 again it makes sense, I think it is a bad idea to put 5th grade in middle school though, kids at that age are not ready for the pressure middle school brings. swapping jr. high and highschool campuses makes sense so I would go with the second option.
I think any arrangement that would put 9-12 at a HS and grades 7-8 at Jr. High would get my vote. I also love the idea of having the HS right in Maple Valley (as opposed to Covington/Kent).
Perhaps the creativity and ingenuity introduced will spark an interest in the serious issue we have in our district! Our kids deserve it!!
Also, the HS MUST have a performing arts center.
as a student of the district, I can tell you that the K-4 elementary option is the best. Freshmen need to be at the High School, and the 5th graders need the resposibility that comes with going to a Middle School