Growth forces Lake Washington School District to shuffle students
The Lake Washington School District plans to change grade configurations and send some students from the crowded east side of the district to the less-crowded west side to cope with a rapidly growing enrollment.
Seattle Times Eastside reporter
Chip Kimball
Meeting tonight
Lake Washington Superintendent Chip Kimball will answer questions about the proposed changes to grade configurations and a new feeder-school pattern for junior highs at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at A.G. Bell Elementary, 11212 N.E. 112th St., Kirkland.King County's birthrate is climbing, the number of new houses in Redmond is growing, and voters in the Lake Washington School District recently turned down a bond issue to build schools for all the new students.
So the district is planning a two-step approach to find seats for everyone. It plans to change school-grade configurations and to send students in the east side of the district to less-crowded schools on the west side.
The changes are not sitting well with some Kirkland-area parents, who say the district shut them out of the decision-making process. The changes would take place at the start of the 2012 school year.
Lake Washington, the sixth-largest district in the state and largest on the Eastside, estimates it will gain 425
