LYNNWOOD — The Edmonds School Board will place a four-year, $44 million capital improvements levy on the May 18 ballot, hoping to upgrade classroom technology and make science labs, playgrounds and athletic fields safer.
Levy money also would allow the district to make structural improvements to better brace for earthquakes and do design work for the future building of a new Lynnwood High School and Scriber Lake Alternative High School.
The proposal would be a scaled-down version of a $110 million bond measure and an $18 million technology levy that failed after receiving a 57 percent "yes" vote in February 2003. The measure needed 60 percent to pass.
"We have hit two long foul balls, and this is a chance to drive one up the middle," Superintendent Wayne Robertson said, using a baseball metaphor.
The levy rate would be 68 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for each of the four years: On a $200,000 home, that would be $136.
The overall local tax rate when combining voter-approved bonds and levies would increase from $3.49 per $1,000 this year to $3.90 per $1,000 in 2005. It would be well below the $4.60 per $1,000 property assessment in 2003.
"The school board believes it is imperative we keep moving to our goal of bringing all students up to state and national standards," board President Bruce Williams said. "That means we need to employ every means possible, including continuing to invest in up-to-date technology and make structural improvements needed for a safe learning environment."
The board voted Tuesday to put the measure on the ballot.
Dave Golden, principal at Lynnwood High School, said classroom technology would be upgraded in many ways, including improved and quicker Internet access.
Each student would have a "digital locker" in which teachers, parents and students would have online computer access to the individual students’ grades, attendance, progress toward meeting state academic standards and examples of their school work.
Golden said the levy also would provide a laptop computer, a projector and "document camera" for each classroom that would allow students and teachers to present color and three-dimensional images — from DNA to larva to pages in children’s books — on a screen. The equipment would be a major step up from traditional black-and-white images from overhead projectors, he said.
The design work for Lynnwood and Scriber high schools would provide realistic models for people to see before a new bond measure is eventually proposed.
"It will do a lot of the work that needs to be done so when we are ready to float the bond for a new high school, we wouldn’t be talking about having it completed four years down the road but more like two years," Golden said.
Eileen Kelliher, a mother with two children in the district, said improvements the levy would pay for that most people may not notice are important to her.
Kelliher serves on the district’s Citizens Planning Committee and has reviewed seismic reports analyzing different campuses for their structural ability to let people get out safely in an earthquake. The levy would pay for seismic upgrades at 21 schools.
She said she would feel better knowing the improvements are made at schools such as Meadowdale Middle School, where her daughter is a student.
"It’s just part of a safe school environment," she said.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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