Thanks for your patience on our responses in regards to the School Board Meetings. I am quite sure that whatever I write, there will be aspects that can be argued or corrected. Please feel free to have at it. Trust me, I am not an expert on this and am only doing my best to relay information. If you feel this would be helpful to forward to anyone I left out, thanks ahead of time since I have a convoluted patch-worked list here….
After conversing with a couple of our residents that met with Mike Winkler (from the School Board), I have ascertained from our discussions that the meeting went well and that the bisection of Issaquah Highlands West of Highlands Drive is not an attractive option for the Board. I spoke with John, and he said that they will have a synopsis written of the meeting that occurred on Dec. 11th and will submit that for us very soon.
A few of us attended the “work session” of the Board meeting on the 12th from 6:00 until 7:00pm. The rest of the room was filled with Clark parents and teachers, and extraneous school-related people. The work-study session was helpful for me to glean a better understanding of how the Board members interact with one another = the work-session will not be available on pod cast. A reassuring statement from Mike Winkler: “It doesn’t make sense placing Highlands in to Clark.” He represents our community on the Board and supports the Highlands as a whole. However, we cannot completely disregard that the Highlands was once again mentioned as one of the “concepts” to keeping Clark opened by another Board member.
It seemed to me during this session, that the argument for Clark (besides some of the Board members love affair for Clark) had a lot to do with the land; the School District feels that it cannot lose that parcel of land as District property – especially if the bypass was built. An interesting idea was brought up ,“What if Clark could operate as both a comprehensive magnet school and neighborhood school, but provide no transportation services to and from the school” = no extra cost in that regard. The Board members were really trying to think creatively about Clark as a facility, one even mentioned the concept of utilizing Clark for classrooms during the major remodeling of Issaquah High School.
During the work session, some members questioned what changed since the bond for E-15 (15 viable elementary schools) passed? Good question. No answers were provided of course….
When I spoke with friends that have their kiddos enrolled at Clark (my son used to attend Kindergarten at Clark = which we were really impressed with), they would really like to see our community intact and feel we definitely should not be split up, but at the same time, they would like their “neighborhood” school as well.
Thanks to some who stayed for the latter part of the meeting (I just couldn’t sit there for 4 hours!), I was told that the public input from Clark parents, students, and teachers was quite compelling. Their arguments to keep Clark opened sounded similar to some of ours…. We didn’t speak that night on behalf of the Highlands because Erick, Farris, John, etc…. felt that it would be too preemptive for us to speak before we can gather more information from future meetings. I think we will not have a clear idea where we stand until the Board makes the actual “facility decisions” (not boundary) in regards to Clark. Building the school deemed “E-15” is a no-brainer; I definitely think we should push to have this school built ASAP!!!! Just my thought.
Another fun fact: The Board disagreed upon the dates that decisions would be made. They are working on two different time-lines = facilities and boundaries. Ron Thiele does not want to push the decision on facilities another 2 weeks, but some disagree that if they make their decision by Jan 9th, many people will feel they have made their decision without enough public input, etc…. “We don’t want people to think we’re being too hasteful….” At least we have their caution on our side. Perhaps we did scare them a bit after the 9th grade-only escapade.
I am quite sure that everyone is looking forward to hearing from the residents that met with Mike Winkler. Their synopsis should be even more helpful to us. The general consensus is, we have a wonderful group of residents that will make sure the School Board continues to be aware of our position, and that presently, we can all take a breather from this topic during the Holidays…..
The next meeting Board meeting is slated for January 9th I believe. I will do my best to attend the work-session part of that meeting and take notes since it is not available on pod cast. I hope someone else will be able to join me for that part as well….it really is a lot of fun J!!!!!
