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Our community must pass the school construction bond to reduce Tahoma’s severe overcrowding, provide our kids with secure schools and preserve our district’s reputation and our property values. Vote YES when your ballot arrives in the mail in late October. It’s time to put our kids first.

Here’s what a YES vote will bring you and the whole community:

Innovative programs for the whole community. The district is planning the new high school to serve a “community learning center,” and is already in the early stages of partnering with regional colleges and businesses in order to offer classes and training for both students and adults. Using the high school this way is expected to help the district bring in more money, too. Read more about this by clicking the page titled “Community Learning,” above.

A solution to the district’s severe overcrowding. The school construction bond includes money for a new central high school to be built in the so-called Donut Hole near Four Corners.The new high school will serve grades 9-12, opening up the current high school and junior high to become middle schools for all students in grades 6-8. The current middle schools would then become elementaries, with Cedar River taking grades 3-5 and sharing a population with adjacent Shadow Lake, which would serve grades K-2.

More secure schools districtwide. The bond includes funding for projects that will improve student safety and security. For one thing, portable classrooms will be removed throughout the district. And schools will also receive modernized security systems for safer buildings.

A return to normalcy at current district buildings. The bond includes money for repairs to crucial systems such as roofs and HVAC so that students no longer have to attend classes in substandard conditions. Class sizes — which have grown significantly in recent years as the district has run out of options for housing students — will be able to return to levels that align with neighboring districts. And finally the district will be able to use standard resources as intended — currently computer labs, counseling spaces, conference rooms, activity areas and even closets are used as instructional spaces.

Improved class offerings for high school students. Building a large, central single high school for four grades — an estimated 2,400 students — allows the district to offer a wider variety of courses, activities and sports for the larger population. Bringing ninth-graders into the high school allows Tahoma to align with neighboring districts as well. (The high school now serves grades 10-12.)