By Eric Stevick
Herald Writer
MALTBY — A grass-roots legal tool that was used to transfer a neighborhood from the Snohomish School District into the Monroe School District will be tried again to put it back.
At issue is a neighborhood in the Echo Falls and Valley Ridge Trails communities near Maltby that is on a fringe of the Monroe and Snohomish districts.
Following a rarely used legal process, parents Bonney Ottow and Tammy Leachman convinced a regional committee in August to transfer the property from Snohomish to Monroe. Their children previously needed a variance to attend Monroe schools.
Another neighborhood group, which wants their children to remain in the Snohomish district, says they were caught off guard, learning about the decision from the newspaper.
After studying their options, they have decided to follow the same procedure used by Ottow and Leachman to redraw the boundaries.
That process includes gathering property owner signatures for a petition and seeing if the Monroe and Snohomish school districts can reach an agreement.
If the districts can’t agree, the petition will go before the regional Committee on School District Organization, the same panel that approved the transfer to Monroe. The citizens panel, which represents school districts in five Northwest Washington counties, had not been asked to resolve a territory transfer request since 1992.
"If the districts cannot make a decision, we want to get back in front of that panel of nine and let them decide," said Linda Schumacher, a mother with three children in the Snohomish School District. "We are convinced that the community has not been represented."
While the Snohomish School Board opposed the transfer at the August meeting, no property owners spoke out against the request. However, opponents say they didn’t know there was a hearing.
"We were surprised, I guess flabbergasted, when we found out this actually went through," Schumacher said. "We would have loved to have been in attendance."
Students from the Snohomish School District who want to remain at Snohomish schools have been allowed to do so this year. However, neither parent group wants to worry about getting variances each year with no guarantee their children will be able to attend the schools of their choice.
Both sides believe they can offer strong arguments about the criteria that the Committee on School District Organization must consider. Those criteria include safety, transportation and sense of community.
"All we want to do is just to be heard," Schumacher said. "Everybody has a story. Everyone should have an opportunity to tell it."
Bonney Ottow won’t argue that point.
"It is our form of government," Ottow said. "They have every right to do this, and I don’t begrudge them in the least. I just think they are wrong."
The Monroe School District has taken a neutral position.
The group trying to restore the school district boundary plans to submit its petition to the Northwest Educational Service District by the end of the month, Schumacher said.
You can call Herald Writer Eric Stevick at 425-339-3446
or send e-mail to stevick@heraldnet.com.
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