The Snoqualmie Valley School District is proposing a middle-school boundary change that would move current North Bend students from Chief Kanim Middle School to Snoqualmie Middle School and all Snoqualmie Ridge middle-school students from Snoqualmie Middle School to Chief Kanim Middle School. This is intended to take effect in the fall of 2004.

This proposal comes as a shock and disappointment to residents in the district, particularly those who voted to pass last year’s school bond, and especially to the residents of Snoqualmie Ridge.

The school bond approved less than nine months ago was represented, among other things, to provide for a new middle school that would serve North Bend. The passage of this bond implied that North Bend, Snoqualmie and Fall City students would attend middle schools in their respective neighborhoods. In addition, the bond supports the remodel of the Chief Kanim gym.

Had voters of the Snoqualmie Ridge neighborhood known that their approval vote to build a new middle school in North Bend would force their children to go to Chief Kanim and leave behind their neighborhood Snoqualmie Middle School, the votes would have been much different.

Also, if Snoqualmie Ridge voters had known that their vote for the Chief Kanim expansion would be to their benefit and yet they would have no input (decisions have been made), the votes would have been much different.

Snoqualmie Ridge families bought homes in Snoqualmie to belong to a community and to attend the fine schools that are in the Snoqualmie neighborhood. For the sake of a unified city of Snoqualmie, I would ask that the district revisit their options for middle-school redistricting and not take Snoqualmie Ridge students from Snoqualmie Middle School.

Jan Calvert

Snoqualmie