Lake Washington School District (LWSD) is proud to serve the communities of Kirkland, Juanita, Redmond and Sammamish. We provide high-quality education to our community’s 30,000+ children.
“Growing Together” is our theme for the 2022-23 school year. This focus on growth relates to our students growing and thriving as young people, but it also relates to the actual growth across our communities.
The pandemic created hardship for our young people. We will continue to provide high-quality services to each student every day. We are so grateful for the partnership with our community as they passed our Educational Programs and Operations Levy. This levy has allowed us to provide programs and services that otherwise would not be available. Services such as:
· Enhanced counseling and mental health support to respond to the social and emotional learning needs of our students.
· Student program enhancements for students with unique learning needs in our Special Education, Highly Capable and Multilingual programs.
· Support for afterschool, activities and sports, as we know these are ways students maintain connection to school and community.
· Supports for our inclusive practices work at all levels as we work to ensure all students can attend their neighborhood school.
Additionally, our community continued their support for the Technology and Capital Projects levy. This levy funds the overall technology program and school site improvements and upgrades. These levy funds allow us to achieve excellence for our students.
Over six years, LWSD moved from being the sixth largest district in Washington to the second largest, behind Seattle. With that growth in the community comes the need to provide more space within our schools to serve our students
To accommodate growth, our community has been asked to support several funding measures over the past six years.
· In 2016, a bond passed, allowing us to add capacity for 3,000 students:
o Build two new elementary schools, a new middle school and rebuild/expand two elementary schools
o Remodel Old Redmond Schoolhouse as the Early Learning Center
o Replace Explorer Community School
· In 2019, a construction levy passed, allowing us to add capacity for 1,052 students:
o An addition at Lake Washington High School
o Additions at four elementary schools
· In 2022, another construction levy passed, allowing us to add capacity for 2,350 students:
o Eight classrooms at three middle schools
o A new elementary school
o New high school capacity on the east side of the district (in Sammamish).
We are thankful for our supportive community that continues to pass funding measures to ensure our students have the supplies, space and technology they need to be successful.
I am thankful for our students, teachers, staff and families. We hope the 2022-23 school year is the best year ever!