Lake Stevens works to accommodate influx of kindergarteners

Published 1:30 am Monday, April 3, 2017

LAKE STEVENS — As work continues on a new elementary school here, the school district plans to add a dozen more kindergarten classrooms to existing schools.

The Lake Stevens School Board voted March 22 to seek bids for building the classrooms. Over the next couple of years, the plan is to add two kindergarten rooms at each of the district’s six elementaries: Highland, Hillcrest, Mt. Pilchuck, Sunnycrest, Glenwood and Skyline.

Lake Stevens’ seventh elementary school, Stevens Creek, is under construction and scheduled to open at the start of the 2018-19 school year. It will share the campus with a new preschool expected to open next year.

Each classroom added to the existing elementaries would be built for about 20 students, district spokeswoman Jayme Taylor said. That means the project would add space for about 240 kindergarten students across the district.

Lake Stevens currently has 646 kindergarten students. All of the elementaries are over capacity, Taylor said. New classrooms are needed to keep up with increasing enrollment and full-day kindergarten, which has expanded in local schools over the past couple of years.

The classroom additions are expected to cost about $950,000 per school, totaling $5.7 million district-wide. The money is coming from a state grant geared toward lowering class sizes in kindergarten through third grade. The Lake Stevens School District in 2016 received a $24.56 million grant from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Classrooms are expected to be added at Highland, Hillcrest, Mt. Pilchuck and Sunnycrest elementaries this summer. Construction at Glenwood and Skyline elementaries would begin after Stevens Creek Elementary opens in September 2018, Taylor said.

Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com