Lawmakers in Olympia will be haggling over votes on school funding perhaps until June.
Voters in the Edmonds School District will get a chance much sooner to show their support of public education. Mail ballots are going out this week and polls will be open Feb. 4 as the district asks approval for two critically needed measures.
One would let the district sell bonds to fund school construction and safety improvements. The money raised, $110 million, would build a new Lynnwood High School, replacing a building that is literally crumbling around the students. A new Scriber Lake High School would be built and many schools would receive much needed seismic and other safety upgrades.
The second measure is a levy that would fund technology improvements, which is more than just code words for new computers, although those would come, too. It means more reliable Internet connections, audio-visual and video equipment and training to help teachers help students.
Evenly spreading resources is an issue for all school districts. Myriad grants and pilot projects from outside sources, while they bolster threadbare budgets, can exacerbate the problem of one school having the best while another struggles.
District officials say this three-year, $18 million levy will even the playing field across the district and give all students equal access to technology resources.
In 2002, voters gave similar measures more than 50 percent but less than the 60 percent approval needed to pass. School officials felt their message wasn’t clear and have changed the approach, getting closer to the grassroots in getting out the word this time.
Passing the measures means increasing the property tax by 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for the bonds and another 55 cents for the technology levy.
Yes, times are tough but hope for the future requires investment in the future, the children.
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