Schools
Enumclaw schools study giving Black Diamond more representation
New Census numbers mean director districts need revisions
The Black Diamond area needs more representation on the Enumclaw School Board.
Board members seemed to agree with that at Monday night’s meeting. But how that
will happen is yet to be determined.
The school board was discussing proposed new boundaries for the district. The process takes place every 10 years, after the Census comes out. The goal is to keep each director district as close in population as possible, schools superintendent Mike Nelson explained. The total population in the district is 25,179, which would mean 5,036 people in each of the five districts. Currently two districts are 400 people apart. With changes drawn up by Sammamish Data, the difference would fall to a more acceptable 112 variance.
Nelson recommended setting up a public hearing and then voting on the issue at their next meeting, changed from July 18 to July 25.
Find out what's happening in Enumclawwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
However, the discussion took a different turn once Nelson said: “We expect Black Diamond to explode in the next 20 years, but we have to go with what we know now.”
Board members seemed to ask, why wait?
Find out what's happening in Enumclawwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Tim Nickson, who represents the area now, said that Black Diamond is expected to grow, maybe to be as big as Enumclaw, in the next decade or so.
“Thinking forward, that’s a lot for one person,” he said. “We’d serve the district better with two voices.”
Rather than accept new boundaries as drawn up, he and others said they’d like to see Sammamish Data look at if boundaries could be redrawn so that the Black Diamond area could get more representation on the board.
Board President Chris VanHoof said even though each director represents a district, in reality all of them are supposed to represent all of the districts.
“Tim has done a good job. Some of us have been lazy. We need to go there more often,” VanHoof said.
The board decided to have Nelson instruct Sammamish Data to see if the numbers in each district could be evened out and still get Black Diamond more representation on the board. VanHoof said he still would like to see a public hearing set up and then a vote July 25.