Editorial: Work for Everett schools before next bond vote

Published 1:30 am Sunday, April 22, 2018

By The Herald Editorial Board

With the projected population and enrollment growth expected over the next decade and beyond, the Everett School District shouldn’t — and can’t — take no for an answer, following the rejection by district voters in February of its $330 million bond request to build a fourth high school and make other improvements at its schools.

It can’t because it has no choice but to accommodate the growth in Everett, Mill Creek and other communities in the district. Fall enrollment this year was just shy of 20,000 students. The district will need to accommodate an estimated 1,600 additional students within the next decade, about 800 of those at its high schools.

Truthfully, the answer was yes from a majority of voters, 55.4 percent, but the bonds that are used to build and renovate schools, unlike levies for programs, require a 60 percent majority for passage. Of three school districts running bonds in February, Arlington School District, like Everett, earned 55.9 percent approval for its bond, but fell short of passage, while Northshore School District’s bond passed with 60.7 percent approval.

The election result sent the Everett School District’s Board of Directors back to the table last week to discuss why the bond failed, how and when to return the bond request to voters, and also how to address overcrowding at Jackson High School that now won’t be resolved by a fourth high school in the district’s south end until 2023 at the earliest.

Examining why the bond failed — the district’s third attempt at funding construction of a high school — will help direct its message to voters in the next attempt.

Everett, like most school districts in the region, fought headwinds of negative tax sentiment this year, following a temporary spike in property tax rates for schools. The 2017 Legislature, as part of its solution to address school funding crisis, adopted a so-called levy swap that increased the state’s property tax for schools while decreasing the amount collected by school districts in locally approved levies. But the state’s increase went into effect before local levies decreased, resulting in a surge in rates for this year.

The result: Many school districts saw a decline in levy approval rates this February when compared to 2014 levy elections. While all Snohomish County school districts but Darrington’s passed their levies in February, most saw passage rates drop by several percentage points over the last election. Everett’s support dropped more than five points, passing with 55.3 percent approval.

Also contributing may be confusion among some voters that the Legislature’s funding solution for the state Supreme Court’s McCleary mandate put the full responsibility for school funding on the state and ended the need for local levies. The intent of McCleary was to put the responsibility for basic education — in particular, teacher pay and benefits — on the state and end an over-reliance on local levies. Those levies, while smaller in scale, still are necessary to deliver a quality education, rather than just a basic one.

Board members don’t appear in a hurry to get the bond proposal back on the ballot, saying they want to devote the time necessary for community engagement and discussions. The consensus from Tuesday’s discussion was that a spring vote offers the best opportunity for that outreach, with April 2020 the leading choice. Attempting the bond in April 2019 would mean the new high school could open in fall of 2023, while waiting for a 2020 vote pushes the opening back a year.

Assuming passage and the fourth high school’s opening in ’23 or ’24, the district still must address overcrowding at Jackson High until then.

District-wide, the three high schools served about 5,300 students as of 2017 with nearly 6,100 expected by 2023. As of 2017, Jackson’s enrollment was 2,137, more than 375 students above its building capacity, not counting the use of 17 portables.

The three options available include double-shifts and other schedule changes at Jackson, the addition of another 13 portables between now and 2023 at the school, and boundary changes that would move students among Jackson, Cascade and Everett high schools.

None is ideal. Double shifts and schedule changes don’t completely address overcrowding and could harm the school’s learning environment. Space for portables already is limited at Jackson, and the stand-alone classrooms present added security challenges. And boundary changes for each school — moving 375 students from Jackson to Cascade and 375 from Cascade to Everett — would mean significant changes for the families of 750 students.

The board made no formal decision regarding which option it might adopt, again seeing the need for engagement with families, students and the community at each of the three schools.

But those discussions will be necessary to the success of the outreach the district will have to undertake in returning to the voters for a fourth time for a new high school and other necessary improvements. The parents and students consulted in a temporary fix to overcrowding at Jackson would be valuable team members during the coming bond campaign.

They can best make the case that Everett’s students can’t take no for an answer.