ISD lowers bond proposal in response to community feedback
After the Issaquah School District (ISD) $642.3 million bond proposal failed in the Nov. 5 election, the district looked to the community to understand what went wrong. At a Dec. 9 community feedback session at Pine Lake Middle School, community members shared that a lack of trust was a key force in voting against the bond.
In response, ISD has clarified the bond’s priorities and reduced the requested amount by 63% to $231.6 million. The revised proposal will appear on the Feb. 11 special election ballot.
Had it passed, $182 million of the Nov 5. request would have been allocated to a new high school. But voters questioned whether the new school was necessary and whether the funds would truly be used for building it.
In 2016, ISD promised a new high school as part of a $533.5 million bond. However, delays caused by litigation and rising costs led to additional funding requests and reallocations. The repeated changes fed public mistrust.
At the feedback session, Kristen Flemer, a counselor at Skyline High School and proponent of the bond, expressed frustration over the challenges in addressing the mistrust.
“The number one question I got as a staff member and as a parent was why should we trust that this is the last time we’ll be asked–because we keep getting asked. And I’ve had a hard time trying to find some of it out myself, and I feel like I’m really well-acquainted with the website,” Flemer said.
Along with an anonymous online forum during the session, ISD presented a compiled list of the top ten concerns voters had, where people criticized the district’s management of the 2016 bond funds. They believed that some of that money was misused to fund a new ISD administration building.
School board president Harlan Gallinger clarified that $82 million of the 2016 bond funds were used on older ISD capital projects that were not considered in scope, but the current board caught and reported it. According to ISD, all funds were accounted for and only spent on district projects approved in prior ISD bond resolutions.
Gallinger asked the community to recognize that the mistakes with the 2016 bond were made by the previous board.
“I do want to highlight here that out of the leadership team of five board members, a superintendent, and a chief financial officer, only one of those people is still here today,” Gallinger said.
Gallinger acknowledged the lingering mistrust created by the past board and the need for accountability to move forward.
“I hear what’s being said about trust and transparency, and I get it. And I’m happy to fall on swords,” Gallinger said.
According to Julie Marshall, a parent who served on the bond advisory committee, for the Nov. 5 vote, ISD failed to clarify the 2016 funds allocation and assure the public that the same would not happen again.
“The mark was missed with ownership and accountability for what happened, and I don’t think the measures that you as a board have put in place to prevent this from happening again are sufficient enough to start to regain that trust,” Marshall said.
Theo Gamelin, a retired UCLA professor and resident in Providence Point, voted against the bond because of a lack of information. He explained that the bond pamphlet was uninformative. He tried to find additional information online, such as enrollment statistics but found the district’s site hard to navigate.
“I wanted to see what was going on in the school, and if maybe they really did need it or not, and I just had a lot of trouble on the website,” Gamelin said.
Councilmember Amy Lam and other community members questioned the rush to put the bond on the Feb. 11 special election ballot.
Lam would prefer the district take the time to consider other options, such as moving ninth-graders to middle school and sixth-graders to elementary school.
“I don’t understand why the need to go to the February election so quickly without figuring out whether or not these alternatives would work, which would in effect be almost next to nothing compared to a $300 million high school,” Lam said.
According to Gallinger, the new high school’s permit expires on April 27 of 2025, and delaying construction would cost over $75 million more.
While Marshall expressed frustration with the district’s communication, she also believes a new high school would benefit the community by creating jobs as well as space for students. Ultimately, she wants ISD and the public to compromise to pass the bond.
“If we build a fourth high school, what does that do to our community from a job standpoint? We create work, we stimulate the economy in other ways. So it’s a win-win,” Marshall said.
In addition to lowering the request from $642 million to $231.6 million, for the Feb.11 special election, ISD has clarified the bond’s priorities to focus $39.9 million on safety and security and $191.7 million on addressing high school overcrowding by both expanding Liberty High School and building a new high school.
