Lake Wash. School District Bonds Failing On Second Round

Along with Proposition 1, another measure on some King County ballots appears to be failing. The construction bond measure for the Lake Washington School District needed 60 percent to pass.

Early returns had just 50 percent of voters approving it.

Kathryn Reith is a spokesperson for the Lake Washington district, which serves Kirkland, Redmond and Sammamish. She said the loss of bond money will make dealing with a large influx of students to the district extremely difficult.

“We had over 1,600 students join our district over the last two years; we're expecting a total of at least 4,000 over about 8 years. We have more students than we have permanent classrooms right now,” Reith said. “So it’s through portables and juggling and some really creative work by our principals that we're handling our current student load.”

The Lake Washington School District asked voters for money two months ago. That bond failed by 2 percent. It was close enough that the district decided to try again.

The Everett School District also gave a bond measure a second try last night. That measure is also short of the 60 percent required to pass so far.