Residents of the Broadhurst neighborhood near Ames Lake were back before the Snoqualmie Valley School District board of directors, making their latest case to join Lake Washington schools.

However, the petitioners weren’t alone at the Thursday, Jan. 22 public hearing, held at Snoqualmie Middle School. Other parents, including one father from Broadhurst, spoke up in opposition to the transfer.

Petitioners told the Valley Record that a vast majority of home-owners in the 114 Broadhurst properties have asked to leave the Snoqualmie district and join Lake Washington schools, which serve Redmond.

The main issue that petitioners touted was the long travel time between Valley schools and their neighborhood.

The current boundary was drawn up in the 1940s, and petitioners told the board that times have changed and their true community is Redmond. They brought a poster showing some of the 56 children whose lives would change if the petition is approved.

“1944 — a lot has changed,” said Broadhurst resident Myles Kahn. “We’re in Redmond. I don’t think the community is properly served by the district.”

A previous petition in 1997 was turned down by the district. Last year, Broadhurst parents saw their petition thrown out on a technicality because it left an island of five residences inside the Lake Washington district.

Making the case for the transfer, Broadhurst parent Gary Patterson said that 11 Lake Washington schools are closer than any Snoqualmie Valley ones.

“That’s pretty powerful,” Patterson said.

“Our children spent excessive amounts of time traveling to and from school,” Patterson said. “You’re talking about 5- and 6-year-olds being on the bus 65 to 70 minutes a day. For us, as parents, it’s unacceptable.”

The only way Broadhurst children get to school is down “busy, dangerous country roads,” Patterson said. They are too far away from classmates to build relationships, he added.

It’s harder for parents to be involved in school activities, too, Patterson argued.

“It’s very difficult during the work week, trying to go the extra 15 miles to get to an event after work,” he said. The distance from school ends up hurting the neighborhood, Patterson said.

Broadhurst parents spoke about how the Lake Washington bus travels through their neighborhood each day to pick up students living down the same stretch of road.

“You have children standing there every morning, watching the Lake Washington bus pass them by, not once but twice — it’s ridiculous,” Kahn said.

If Broadhurst were to leave the district, there would be an impact in the taxes other Snoqualmie Valley parents pay. Petition supporters predicted that school taxes would rise about $15 per year for the average homeowner.

However, opponents of the move predicted a “domino effect” of other Ames Lake-area residents pulling out of Snoqualmie Valley if Broadhurst goes.

“It’s about setting a precedent that will have significant impact on our district,” Carnation parent Mary Alice Colvin told the board.

“A decision to release Broadhurst is a decision to release the entire Ames Lake corridor,” said Colvin, who predicted a drop in 333 children in the school population, triggering a district-wide boundary change.

Following the domino theory, if all Ames Lake corridor residents were to leave the district, the district would lose almost $1.3 million from its property tax base, transfer opponents calculated. That would mean an additional $170 burden on the average Valley homeowner.

“The district does not have the critical mass to absorb these impacts,” Colvin said.

Broadhurst parent Dan Spalding was among the transfer opponents. He said the petition doesn’t take into effect “the investment my family has made in the district.”

“We have a great circle of friends,” he said. “We have a commitment to schools in our district.”

Spalding presented figures showing Fall City Elementary and Chief Kanim schools as far from overcrowded, and actually below capacity.

Broadhurst parents rebutted opponents’ domino arguments, saying those should not be used against them.

In the next step in the process, board members Rudy Edwards and Carolyn Loudenback will hold a joint meeting with representatives from the Lake Washington School District to discuss the territory transfer request. Both teams will then return to their boards to consider action.