Voters will decide on a $246 million school bond in the Snoqualmie Valley School District in February. The district’s board of directors voted 4 to 1 on Oct. 9 to proceed with a bond, slightly revised from the proposal under discussion for the past year.

A sixth elementary school, $20 million in repairs and updates to other district buildings, and a high school rebuild to bring freshmen back onto the main campus are all still components of the bond. Yet instead of either the staff-recommended 2,400-student high school, or the 2,100-student high school proposed by architects, the board has reached for something in between.

Following several reports on enrollment projections, board member Dan Popp said, “It struck me as though the 2,400-capacity school is an over-capacity question, based on enrollment projections, and the 2100 is…. obviously not big enough. It wouldn’t be big enough virtually at the start.” He wanted to know, “where’s the happy medium?”

This year started at roughly 6,160 full-time equivalent students (6,500 in headcount) in the district, 2,920 in elementary school, 1,500 in middle school, 1,640 at Mount Si, and 105 at Two Rivers. Demographer Les Kendrick projected 7,400 students in the district by 2020, with high school enrollment ranging from 1,900 at the low end to a high of 2,200 by 2022 when a new high school would be complete. At the middle school level, Kendrick’s projections indicate a new middle school would be needed by 2019, with enrollment estimates of 1,600 to 1,800.

Popp suggested reducing the high school size slightly, to correspondingly reduce the bond cost slightly, and Matt Rumbaugh, with NAC Architects, confirmed that a final capacity of 2,300 students would mean about $7 million less in costs.

The reduction wasn’t an entirely happy medium, however. Board member Marci Busby, who voted against the bond, read a lengthy and emotional statement about her opposition to the elementary school, at $36 million, being “held hostage” to the other parts of the full bond proposal.

“I think we should move forward on a bond for a new elementary school in February. It is our greatest need,” Busby said. “I offer that option as a way to get a 5-0 vote tonight.”

Busby said she could not support the full bond, and was critical of several board actions, including asking the wrong questions, not listening to the district’s own experts, such as rejecting last year’s demographer recommended medium-growth projections, which this year proved to be a little low, and for not answering many questions before that night’s vote. She called for more time, and suggested the district use its new Thoughtstream tool to gather feedback from the community on the schools’ needs. She also repeated her suggestion that the district run the elementary bond separately, but on the same ballot, as another bond with the remaining components.

After a lengthy discussion, and many public comments, Board President Geoff Doy called for a motion on the bond. Tavish MacLean moved for the full bond, at the reduced capacity of 2300 students, saying, “It’s OK to disagree…” but “We need to move. We need to build and we need to plan.” His own sons would be affected by the long high school construction, estimated to be done by the fall of 2022, and he reminded the audience that many board members also had children in the district.

Carolyn Simpson also addressed the audience, specifically those who’d shared their worries about how to pay for such a large bond. “We’re not comparing zero to this bond,” she said, and she believed that each of the other options would end up being more expensive to the district in the long run. She added that she would lobby for the board to create a bond financial oversight committee, if the bond passes.

Popp said the vote “has been an eight-year odyssey,” and recounted many of the district’s activities in that time, especially the committee that originally recommended creating a separate freshman campus. Rebuilding the high school was, at that time, the committee’s second choice, he said, but times changed. He believed the freshman campus had been and would continue to be successful, and called on the community to invest in the schools.

“We need another middle school. We need a new high school, and this bond accomplishes all of that… I couldn’t support it more.”

The total bond cost is estimated at $246 million, and the district will receive an estimated $22 million in state matching funds at the completion of the project. Finance Director Ryan Stokes that the rate per thousand for the bond would average out to about $1.20 per $1,000 of assessed valuation, but would vary with individual properties. The reason for the dramatically reduced rate—the past rate calculations exceeded $2.25—is the rise in property values in the county. Stokes reported that property values in the district rose by a total of $1 billion, an increase of about 18 percent.

Assuming an average property is valued at $300,000, the new bond would cost a tax payer about $360 more annually, about $1,700 in total school taxes.