District news pertinent to Issaquah High families will be posted here.
For the most current school district news and information, visit the
district
website.
News from Issaquah School District:
| February 2012 |
Issaquah School
District Bond Proposal:
The School Board has approved a final
bond package that will go before voters on April 17, 2012.
Among other things, this bond will rebuild our oldest schools. After
more than five decades, Clark Elementary, Issaquah Middle, and Sunny
Hills Elementary are at the end of their life spans.
To get the latest information about the bond, including details of the
board-approved package, visit the
Issaquah School District
website.
|
| January 2012 |
High School Schedule Committee: The committee
tasked with determining a common schedule for all District high schools
completed its work in December.
While it did not outline a specific
schedule, it compiled a
final report of key findings.
Superintendent Rasmussen has presented the school board with his
response to the Committee’s work.
His letter to students, staff, and families announces that there
will be no significant changes to the schedules at each high school for
2012-2013; however, he has required action steps be taken at each high
school between now and the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year to
address and rectify the problems that were affirmed, clarified, and
unearthed during the committee’s work. Stay tuned for more information
as the schools embark in the next phase of the process.
For more information, please visit the district's High
School Schedule
webpage.
|
| January 2012 |
High School Schedule Committee: The committee
tasked with determining a common schedule for all District high schools
completed its work in December. While it did not outline a specific
schedule, it compiled a
final report of key findings.
Superintendent Rasmussen responded with a goal to come back with
subsequent action steps by the end of the month. For more information, please visit the district's High
School Schedule
webpage.
|
| December 2011 |
High School Schedule Committee: The Committee
concluded its work at its final meeting on December 14. Although the
Committee did not recommend a common schedule, it made a summary of its
key findings and recommendations regarding an optimal high-school
schedule. Those will be presented to Superintendent Rasmussen in
January, and he will use those to make an action plan of next steps.
This committee
looked closely at the precious resource of class time in an
effort to design a common schedule for all District high schools. The goal is to
better share resources, consolidate professional support for staff, and
capitalize on
our learning about optimal student experiences from the last three
years. For more information, please visit the district's High
School Schedule
webpage.
|
| October 2011 |
High School Schedule Committee: The school district
is looking into designing a common schedule for high schools. While
they do not yet know what such a schedule will look like, it should allow
them to better share resources, consolidate professional support for
staff, and capitalize on our learnings from the last three years. The
goal of the committee is to recommend a schedule that will go
into effect in Fall 2012. For more information and to submit
comments/question to the committee, please visit the district's
High School Schedule
webpage.
|
| October 2011 |
Issaquah School District Bond Proposal:
At its September 28 business meeting,
the school board approved a final bond package that will go before
voters. Board members also moved the election day from February
14, 2012, to April 17, 2012, to
provide more time to get information to voters.
To get the latest information about the bond, including details of the
board-approved package, visit the
Issaquah School District
website.
|
| September 2011 |
High School Schedule Committee:
In this time of diminishing resources and growing academic
expectations, it is important that we look closely at the
precious resource of time in our high schools in an effort to
design a common schedule for high schools. While we do not yet
know what such a schedule will look like, it should allow us to
better share resources, consolidate our professional support for
staff, and capitalize on our learnings from the last three
years. If you are a parent and are interested in serving on the
High School Schedule Committee, please complete and submit an
application to the IHS front office. To access the application
please go to:
http://www.issaquah.wednet.edu/district/departments/secondary/HSSchedule/Default.aspx
|
| September 2011 |
February 2012 Bond Election - What Do
You
Think?!
Do you have input about school construction
needs? Or perhaps taxes in general? Well, the Issaquah School
Board would like to hear from you!
At its September 28 business meeting, the
school board is planning to finalize the bond package that will
go before voters in February 2012. This plan will encompass the
scope of school construction and capital improvement projects
for the next eight years. Before approving the package,
board members hope to collect as much feedback as possible from
the community.
There are several ways to join the
conversation:
Bond process and current proposal
The Issaquah School District began the 2012
bond process with a community feasibility and development
committee chartered by the superintendent. The committee worked
last spring to shape the District’s initial springboard proposal
of projects into a complete package, which the committee turned
back over to the superintendent. The superintendent then
analyzed the committee’s package and made his own proposal to
the school board in June. Since then, school board members have
created guiding principles, visited school facilities, spoken to
community groups and members, and held public discussions about
the final package. Ultimately, what they approve on September 28
will be the bond measure that goes before voters in February.
A timeline of the process—including the superintendent’s
proposal and the school board’s guiding principles—is posted
online.
What’s on the current proposal?
The major projects in the
superintendent’s recommendation include rebuilds of the
district’s oldest buildings, Clark Elementary, Issaquah Middle
School, and Sunny Hills Elementary; continued renovation and
modernization of Liberty High School; space additions at Apollo
Elementary and Issaquah Valley; and ongoing repairs, efficiency
updates, safety improvements, and modernizations throughout the
District’s schools and facilities.
Bond FAQs
- Q. My property value has gone
up/down in the past several years. Does that mean I pay
more/less for school district bonds and levies?
- As long as your home follows the
general trend for property values in the district, the
actual amount you pay for local school measures should not
fluctuate very much. The entire dollar amount of the
bond/levy measure is divided up per property owner based on
the value of his/her property. That means as long as your
property value remains relatively equal to other
properties in the district, your tax bill remains
steady—even if your tax rate goes up. For instance, if your
tax rate on a $100,000 home is $3 per thousand of assessed
value for a levy measure, you would pay $300; the next year,
if everyone’s home value fell by 20 percent, your slice of
the total bond measure would still be $300, but your tax
rate would increase to $3.75 per thousand ($3.75 x
$80,000/1,000= $300). If your property value changes
dramatically in value compared to other District
properties, however, your relative slice of the
bond/levy obligation will also shift up or down accordingly.
- Q. Instead of facilities
maintenance, why doesn’t the District spend some of those
bond dollars on school operations, such as lower class sizes
and curriculum?
- A. Bond dollars cannot legally be
used for anything other than capital improvements. The state
has a public interest in ensuring that schools operate with
a stable funding source from year to year, which means it
severely caps the amount of local dollars that can be raised
to run schools (before the cap was in place, districts could
raise as many local dollars as taxpayers would support to
run schools; when levies began failing in the 1970s, schools
that had relied on those local dollars were in serious
trouble, and the law was put in place). Now, districts can
raise money locally for four purposes:
Operations of
schools (Maintenance and Operations Levy): The legislated
cap on how much a district can raise locally to run/operate
schools is 24 percent of its total state and federal revenue
(lawmakers temporarily boosted this to 28 percent during the
2010 session). Issaquah School District taxpayers approved a
Maintenance and Operations Levy in 2010 that hits this cap, thus
we are collecting our legal maximum to locally support classroom
operations, including class size, curriculum purchases,
professional development, and more.
Buses (School Bus
Levy): This levy can be used only to buy new buses (the
gas, drivers, insurance, and other costs comes from the
operations fund). Issaquah School District voters approved a new
Bus Levy in 2010.
Technology
(Technology/Critical Repairs Levy): The state provides no
designated funding for school technology, so this levy fills the
gap and can be used only to buy technology equipment and
resources. Issaquah School District voters approved a
Technology/Critical Repairs Levy in 2010.
Construction/capital improvements (Bond or Critical Repairs
Levy): The state provides very little funding for districts to
build and maintain its facilities—they must rely on Construction
Bonds or Critical Repair Levies to do so. The last Construction
Bond passed in the Issaquah School District was in 2006, and
those funds are almost gone.
The irony of this complex system of local
funding is that a school district might find itself in the
situation where it can build a new school but not have the
operational funds needed to open and run it. The
good news is that bond dollars CAN contribute to the operations
fund to support classrooms. How? When construction/capital
projects provide energy efficiencies, increased facility rental
fees, reduced costs of maintenance, and fewer transportation
costs, these saved dollars remain in the operations fund.
- Q. Who can I contact if I have
questions?
- Finances and construction logistics:
Jacob Kuper,
Chief of Finance and Operations, (425) 837-7016; overall
bond package:
Ron Thiele, Associate Superintendent, (425) 837-7025; OR
Sara
Niegowski, Executive Director of Communication, (425)
837-7004.
|
| September 2011 |
State-level Learning Standards: From the Office of
the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the
Your Child’s Progress covers the basics of learning standards and
state testing; the Graduation Requirements Checklist (
Class of 2012 |
Class of 2013 |
Class of 2014) helps families track a student’s progress toward all
graduation requirements, including credits, culminating projects and
high school and beyond plan. Check them out!
|
| July 2011 |
District Budget update: The
draft
2011-2012 budget is now available online along with the
easier-to-digest
Guide to Understanding the 2011-2012 Budget. Please take a
look (in context of the
entire 2011-2012 budget webpage), and if you have questions
or comments,
email the district and/or attend the upcoming hearing at the school
board meeting on August 9. The school board will take action to
adopt the budget at its August 24 meeting.
In a snapshot: The
state this legislative session cut our annual ISD operations
budget by about $4.3 million; next year, while class sizes will
remain steady, we will overcome the revenue gap through a
voter-approved increase in the local Maintenance and Operations
levy authority, more operational efficiencies, decreased
non-classroom service levels (such as administrative and
custodial), utilization of reserve funds, some increased fees,
and continued reliance on community partners such as the PTSA
and Issaquah Schools Foundation.
|
| July 2011 |
The gorgeous
2011-2012 Student Art Calendar is now available online to
help you keep track of all the important school dates. Print off
the entire calendar or save each month as your desktop wallpaper
throughout the year. Many thanks to the amazing student artists
who submitted their work.
|
| June 2011 |
High school schedule conversation to begin this fall: Three
years ago, our high-school administrators—through collaboration, focus
groups, surveys, and constant monitoring and analysis—created five
belief statements about what makes for an optimal high-school
experience. They are in the areas of Access, Connectivity, Citizenship,
Resiliency, and Expression. These belief statements have served as a
filter for many decisions that have incrementally changed the landscape
of our high schools—from online learning to partnering with our middle
schools to provide more flexibility in fulfilling graduation
requirements to rethinking summer-school enrichment opportunities.
Three years ago, the superintendent also asked the high-school
administrators specifically to take a closer look at the use of time and
scheduling. That work was intentionally delayed to allow for a more
careful analysis of existing practices in our schools. However, in this
current period of diminishing resources and growing academic
expectations, it is now important that we return to that charge and look
closely at the precious resource of time in our high schools in an
effort to design a common schedule for high schools. We do not yet know
what such a schedule will look like, but it should allow us to better
share resources, consolidate our professional support for staff, and
capitalize on our learnings from the last three years.
We are starting in August by engaging our staff in conversations that
will be the foundation for a community process that will include a
committee of principals, teachers, staff, students, and parents. There
will be ample opportunities to learn together and provide feedback.
Please look for more information as we embark on this work in the fall.
|
| June 2011 |
2011-2012 bell schedules:
Please note that every school’s
Wednesday bell times have been altered
slightly next year. This was done to standardize elementary start
times for families
|
| June 2011 |
Want to know how the State budget cuts will affect the Issaquah
School District, or the progress of the 2011-2012 district budget? Updates can be found on the district
website.
|
| June 2011 |
Issaquah School District Bond Proposal: A community Bond Feasibility
and Development Committee recommended a bond measure to go before voters in February 2012.
The School Board has voted to run this bond measure and will
work this summer to finalize details.
Read more...
|
|
