Letter: What is Your Preferred Solution to MISD Overcrowding?

Editor:

Please visit the Mercer Island School District (MISD) sponsored public process website and evaluate the various proposed options, vote on your preferred option, as well as consider submitting your own solution.

I would like to acknowledge the thorough work that the MISD has been conducting in preparation for the next school bond measure.

Specifically, over the past 5 months the activities have included:

-       The June public listening sessions.

-       The public survey that was conducted.

-       The MISD booth at summer celebration.

-       Mahlum Architecture’s short term and long-term architectural planning of the 6th School and High School Mega-Block area.

-       Transpo Group’s on-going traffic analysis to be presented Dec. 10th.

-       MISD staff and principal input

-       The City/School District Ad-Hoc Committee’s work to vet north end school site locations.

-       The decision to televise future School Board Meetings on (MI-TV Channel 21) starting Dec. 10th.

-       Updated student enrollment projection

-       Triangle Partners current community outreach and public process website

As a result of the above work, the District has come up with a number of solutions.  There is not a “Perfect” solution as they all have individual tradeoffs.  However, by continuing to engage our community, via:

i)              Sharing solutions and raw data,

ii)             Collecting broad public input,

iii)           Considering new ideas and addressing questions which are raised,

iv)           And making the selection criteria public.

MISD will have shown to the voters that all reasonable solutions were vetted.  And to the extent that any voter’s favored solutions may not be chosen, this process will hopefully win their vote since the voter will have a greater appreciation for the tradeoffs and the knowledge that their individual preferred solution was fairly, publicly and professionally vetted.

I hope all of us encourage our fellow community members to get engaged and provide input, in this discussion and challenge.  We currently have 700+ students in portables and our entire elementary and middle school populations have overcrowded commons areas.  We need to find a solution that will achieve the 60% “yes” vote to PASS.

Respectfully,

Ralph Jorgenson