REPORTER
COVINGTON | MAPLE VALLEY | BLACK DIAMOND
NEWSLINE 425-432-1209
STATE PATROL | Maple Valley woman dies from head on collision [page 5]
SPORTS | North Puget Sound League FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2016 makes a return [9]
A DIVISION OF SOUND PUBLISHING
WEBSITE | Check the website for breaking news, sports and weather stories. maplevalleyreporter.com or covingtonreporter.com
New high school, elementary means new boundaries
Construction crews work on a portion of the new Tahoma High School Tuesday morning. The school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2017. SARAH BRENDEN, The Reporter
Committee to consider class size, portables, bus routes and transporting students to and from schools BY ANA KAREN PEREZ GUZMAN Reporter
The new Tahoma High School is well underway and a new elementary school is set to break ground this summer. With the addition of a larger high school and an elementary school, the question from many parents is how the students will be distributed among the schools. A Boundary Review Committee was formed at a Tahoma School Board meeting in 2015. There were 22 parents selected at random to be part of the committee. About 168 parents were interested in being part of the committee. There were 15 selected with seven others chosen as alternates. Along with the parents are eight
facilitators, all part of the Tahoma School District, and Superintendent Rob Morrow. Among the issues to be considered include the Washington Class Size Reduction measure, what the district will do with the portables it has now and bus routes. Another issue to consider is most of the elementary schools are located in the north end of the school district, while most of the population is in the south end. It appears most of the elementary classes will need to be decreased by 10 students or more because of the class size reduction measure, which means adding more classrooms. The school district will be keeping a little more than half of the portables. The district has about 70 portables but 40 will be destroyed because they are too old and run down to keep. There are 10 portables in good condition that will be used right away, while the other 20 need to be remolded or updated to be used, which is in the district budget. Currently there are more elementary schools located where fewer families live, which will be an
Maple Valley City Council selects Sean P. Kelly as mayor BY ANA KAREN PEREZ GUZMAN Reporter
Sean P. Kelly is no stranger to the Maple Valley community. As a life-long resident, he has worked at the Tahoma School District for 11 years and is entering his fifth year as a City Council member and first as mayor of Maple Valley. “I was very honored that the council trusted me and has faith in me to be the leader of the city,” Kelly said. Kelly wanted to become mayor to
The boundary map shows the 120 square miles the Tahoma School District covers. A Boundary Review Committee is working on the school boundaries. Map courtesy of the Tahoma School District
enhance the city of Maple Valley as best he could. His main concerns are working on traffic on state Route 169, economic development throughout the city while maintaining and improving the quality of life in Maple Valley. After serving his first two years on the council, Kelly was selected to serve as the deputy mayor. Now entering his second term as a councilman, Kelly knows the changes he hopes to make as mayor. Above anything else, his No. 1 goal is to
issue when deciding the school that the students will attend. This also brings up the bus route issue. The district does not want students to sit on a bus for a long period of time getting to and from a school. Test runs on bus routes are planned to see how long it will take to transport students. Another factor the committee is focusing on is keeping communities together. The members hope to avoid sending half of a neighborhood to one school while the other goes to another. There are 3,800 elementary school students who need to be distributed between six schools. If they each get the same number of students, about 634 students will be at each school, which works out well with the smaller classes sizes. But, more students might need to go to a certain schools because of location. One misconception board members have heard [ more BOUNDARIES page 2 ]
One thing Kelly is very excited be as transparent and as available as possible to community about is the running a bond for members and community partparks in Maple Valley. He is confiners, he said. dent it will pass, which will pay for “It is important to hear from more ballfields. the community what their opinKelly said he looks forward to ion is,” Kelly said. “We already building on all that is best in the have great communication with “I was very community. the citizens and I want to keep it honored that Councilman Dana Parnello was the council going and make it better.” selected as deputy mayor. He wants to keep in constant trusted me and Th e city’s form of government contact and be more interactive has faith in me is council-manager, which means with community partnerships so to be the leader the mayor is one of the elected of the city.” citizens know exactly what is gomembers of the City Council and ing on at all times, and in detail. Sean P. Kelly is selected by the council. The city This way, the City Council can manager is hired by the City Counlet community members know cil to oversee the daily administration of what is happening if they have any questions or concerns, he said. the city.