“The community is driving the next bond placed on the ballot for Highline Public Schools,” the district announced this week.
Forty community members have spent the last ten months studying the district’s facilities and capacity concerns, and are developing a long-term facilities plan that “ensures adequate, equitable, and sustainable school facilities that provide students with a high-quality learning environment.”
The Capital Facilities Advisory Committee (CFAC) meets monthly. In June, CFAC will present its recommendations to the school board, including a proposed bond measure.
“If I did not feel this was community driven, I would resign,” said CFAC Co-Chair Rose Clarke. “It’s important to recommend something that is thoughtful, well done, logical to the community, and that the community can pay for. We don’t want to price anybody out of their homes because we would be pricing ourselves out.”
Fifteen committee members were appointed by community organizations, employee associations, and local government leaders. Twenty-five at-large members were chosen by lottery from a pool of over 70 community members who volunteered to serve.
Here’s a video the district produced that shows CFAC members have to say about their work:
Next Highline Bond Will Be Community Driven from Highline Public Schools on Vimeo.
During CFAC’s April 13 meeting, committee members broke into four groups to explore solutions to the four top-priority problems identified at a previous meeting. The working groups will continue to work on these issues at the next meeting.
Read a synopsis of the presentations, review supporting documents, and listen to a complete audio recording of the April 13 meeting online. The next meeting is scheduled for May 11.
“Public schools belong to the entire community,” said School Board President Michael Spear. “It is essential that community members participate in developing the our long term capital facility plan to ensure that it reflects the values and priorities of the community.”
Learn more about CFAC here.