Two days following an apparently overwhelming win for its school bond proposal, the Snoqualmie Valley School Board met in a festive mood.

Acknowledging that the results aren’t certified yet, Superintendent Joel Aune told the board Feb. 12, “We’ve won.”

Most ballots were counted in the first two days following the election, he said, and only 140 were processed that day, but results won’t be certified until Feb. 25.

Board members said they were “relieved,” “delighted,” and “grateful” that district voters had supported the $244 million bond to build a new elementary school and remodeled high school, to repair all school buildings in the district and re-open the freshman campus as a middle school in a few years.

They thanked Snoqualmie Valley Citizens for Schools leaders Kirk Harris and Chris Alef for their hard work in campaigning on the bond, and thanked all the voters who showed their support.

By the end of the meeting, though, board members were struggling with other capacity questions:

• Where to put elementary students until the new building opens in the fall of 2016;

• How to hire enough teachers to be ready to reduce class sizes next year if the expected state funding comes through;

• How to plan, build, and hire for the future full-day Kindergarten requirement; and

• Whether to rely on their own elementary enrollment projections, or lower them to account for a 100-birth reduction in the district, as reported by King County for the incoming 2015 Kindergarten class.

For the 2015-16 school year, the district is projecting 2,902 students in grades K-5, 1,506 in grades 6-8, and 1,798 at the high school level.

Ryan Stokes, an assistant superintendent and finance director with the district, said the existing facilities and staff levels will be adequate at the middle and high schools for next year, even with the district’s planned class-size reductions.

At the elementary schools, the district will need to hire at least five new teachers to maintain its planned smaller class sizes, and more if the state legislature decides to increase school funding.

“Then the question is, do we have room for them,” Stokes said.

Three of the five elementary schools have no extra classrooms available, he said, at current projections. Implementing full-day Kindergarten, or increased state funding for class-size reduction would result in the need for more teachers and classrooms. Just for fun, Stokes projected the number of classrooms needed if the state were to fully fund basic education (instead of the roughly 60 percent Snoqualmie Valley and most districts receive now), and came up with 48. The sixth elementary school, to be funded by the newly approved bond, will add 31, he said.

Continuing a discussion that began in December, Stokes recommended that the board consider buying three or four new double-classroom portables. The portables could be needed for a variety of options, including expansion of the high-capacity program, higher-than-expected Kindergarten enrollment, and special education programs.

Board members were concerned about spending an estimated $1.25 million for classrooms that would be needed for only one year, particularly after just asking voters for $244 million.

Superintendent Joel Aune said he understood the board’s concerns about the cost, but said “The funding source would be impact fees (paid by developers per housing unit), and this is what impact fees are for…. we are very limited in how those impact fees can be expended,” and portable classrooms are one of the few ways to spend that revenue.

Asked about relocating the four portable units in front of Mount Si High School, Stokes said he felt they might be better left as a unit, since they are all plumbed and moving them would be very expensive. He suggested that they might be needed at the high school during one or more of the construction phases, too.

Portables located behind the high school were likely too old to move, he added.

Regarding the option of waiting another month, since Kindergarten enrollment will be available by the end of March, Stokes noted that the district would definitely need some additional classrooms, and recommended getting into their manufacturer’s queue before then, rather than risk getting an order in too late to have them for next fall.

Stokes also reminded the board that an accelerated hiring process proposed in January went hand in hand with the capacity decision. Increased funding for teachers will require the district to have space for them to teach in, and if the district can’t add the capacity, “it’s leaving money on the table.”

After a lengthy deliberation, the board agreed to a tentative commitment to order up to four new portable classrooms, contingent on need, which will be determined in the next six weeks.

Kindergarten registration will be held in all five elementary schools, 1:30 to 3 p.m. and 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 3.

Parents can find out more by visiting the district website, www.svsd410.org.