01/26/2025
Lake Stevens friends ❤️
If you care at all about our schools and education, please take the time to read this:
As you know, our school district put up a Bond for vote in November. I noticed there was a LOT of misinformation about the bond that was circulating in the community which was incredibly confusing.
And it hurt the bond vote in November and seriously failed our students and teachers.
So I want to help clear some of it up.
Our school board took all of the community feedback about the Bond vote from last November and we LISTENED, asked for more community feedback and planned in response.
The need for school building updates is serious. The Community Committee did a full year assessment on our districts building needs and the work members of our Lake Stevens community did was tireless and had students as sole focus.
We need a bond to pass for many reasons:
A few of which include:
Update of school buildings especially Glennwood and Skyline- both of which haven’t had major upgrades and have continually leaking and safety hazards.
Some teachers have taught in leaking classrooms when rain begins- due to old roofs and they need to be replaced. Bonds specifically are for building and growth projects. Levies are different. We’re not asking for a levy but a bond in February.
Our city’s CURRENT AND projected growth requires us as a district to offer more space for our students. We heard from our community here that they prefer smaller class sizes and quality teachers. We can do this with more intentional space for our students.
Many of you in the past have also brought up issues with our food and nutrition and with necessary building upgrades of Food and nutrition at specific schools, this will help our students get the necessary time AND space to eat well. Right now many of our students wait in line in the hallway to get their lunch and then that same space is transformed into PE and it makes it very challenging to do any other necessary programming as well.
As a mom of three children and a board member who has spent sleepless nights trying to figure out how to best lessen the tax burden but also provide for our students because we need to.
We absolutely need to. I say this coming from a Space of a working mom whose husband was on strike for months and we’re still reeling from the financial hurt.
So please know this is out of complete humility and intentional thinking.
I genuinely ask you to read through our Q&A portion of the bond website and learn very clearly what the bond is for - what levies are for - and why we truly need one here in LS.
There is much confusion and to be honest lies about where the money goes and what the bond money is used for.
BONDS ARE SPECIFICALLY FOR NECESSARY BUILDING upgrades, security measures. IT IS ILLEGAL for any district to use bond funding for staff pay or district education curriculum. So whoever is saying that it is, needs to stop.
Misinformation about how much increase we’re asking for in taxes is also circulating in the community. And I need you to clearly understand what we’re asking for.
On the following site you can see how much and at what rate the bond will tax.
The good thing is, we’re getting a bond tax break this upcoming year due to the old bond being paid off. So please keep that in mind as well.
Thank you so much for reading.
Thank you so much for caring.
Please vote yes.
The bond is up for a vote NOW. CHECK YOUR BALLOTS
Vote for our schools
Vote for our students.
We need to show them we care.
Click on the link below. There is so much info for any tax voter.
www.lkstevens.wednet.edu
