By Leslie Moriarty
Herald Writer
MALTBY — A regional school district committee has ruled that residents of the Echo Falls and Valley Ridge Trails communities belong in the Monroe School District.
The Regional Committee on School District Organization in Mount Vernon made its decision this week.
The areas had been in the Snohomish School District until last summer, when some residents submitted petitions and convinced the regional committee to move the 37 students in the neighborhood to the Monroe School District.
But other parents who had not been aware of the petitions later submitted their own petitions asking the committee to reconsider. They wanted their children to remain in the Snohomish School District.
The committee decided the area is in the Monroe School District. At the moment, some students attend school in Snohomish and others in Monroe.
The committee studied more than a dozen criteria, including geography, minority makeup of the districts and services available.
Members cited transportation costs as the primary reason for its decision. School buses from Monroe travel through that area anyway, so it makes economic sense for children in the area to be in the same district, the board ruled.
Snohomish schools superintendent Neal Powell said he was disappointed for the parents who wanted their kids to attend school in his district.
"There are about 16 students who are having their lives disrupted," Powell said. "Many of their parents said they bought homes specifically in the Snohomish district because they wanted their children to attend schools here."
The Snohomish district supported the families that wanted to remain. The Monroe district took a neutral position.
Jerry Jenkins, superintendent of the Northwest Educational Service District, which oversees the work of the committee, said students won’t be required to attend Monroe schools until September 2003.
You can call Herald Writer Leslie Moriarty at 425-339-3436
or send e-mail to moriarty@heraldnet.com.
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