Ballots for the Tahoma School District Educational Programs & Operations Levy are nearly due!
Submit your YES! ballots into the mail or a King County Elections Dropbox before 8:00 PM on Tuesday, 4/23/24.
The Tahoma School District speaks often about “overcrowding” issues in the schools, but what does this mean? Here are some facts:
- All Tahoma buildings except middle schools are full beyond their designed capacity, and conservative projections show that by 2020, all will be full past absolute maximum capacity, with elementaries getting there by 2017.
- Tahoma has three of the 10 largest elementary schools in the state; Lake Wilderness is No. 1 with about 1,000 students.
- Tahoma offers the lowest square footage per student in King County.
- Tahoma has allocated the lowest amount of bond money in the county at $14,000 per student increase. Auburn is second-to-last at almost triple that with $38,000. (Bellevue, at No. 1, has averaged $367,000 for each “new” student.)
- Tahoma is the second-fastest-growing district in the county, with Issaquah first. Issaquah has passed two construction bonds in the last 12 years; Tahoma has failed three in that time.
- Tahoma cannot legally install more portables on most school grounds, about a quarter of Tahoma students spend their days in portables, and many of the district’s portables were purchased for $1 from Kent when that district was ready to scrap them more than 20 years ago.