Lake Washington Prepares To Redraw School Board Districts

REDMOND, WA — Washington's second-largest school district is preparing to redraw the boundaries for its school board elections, aiming to rebalance the five positions to reflect updated population statistics from the 2020 Census. School districts are required to review the boundaries of their board districts each decade, aiming to keep them as evenly divided as possible by population.

The Lake Washington School District's school board contains five districts, with populations currently ranging from 38,389 on the low end to nearly 47,000 on the high end. The new boundaries aim to rightsize the districts to cover about 43,000 residents each, the district said.

The school district said the goal is to ensure "equitable geographic representation" on the board and the changes will have no effect on neighborhood school boundaries. Each position on the school board is also elected on a districtwide basis.

The first public hearing for the proposed changes is scheduled to take place during a school board meeting on March 7, and the proposed maps can already be viewed online. The school board has until mid-November to complete its discussions and formally adopt the changes.

The Lake Washington School District serves more than 30,000 students living in Redmond, Kirkland, Sammamish along with portions of Woodinville, Bellevue and unincorporated King County. Enrollment has ballooned by more than 30 percent since 2008, and the district expects to add another 3,450 students over the next decade.