The Snoqualmie Valley School District’s Capital Facilities Plan was approved unanimously by both the Snoqualmie and North Bend city councils, but officials in North Bend have voiced frustrations that it does not do enough to address long-time concerns held by North Bend residents.

The SVSD’s Capital Facilities Plan is a six-year outlook on facility projects needed to address capacity and growth challenges among its schools. The plan is funded through impact fees, which are one-time charges assessed by government jurisdictions on new development. Fees are set by the school district, using a formula provided by the state, but the district is not authorized to collect those taxes and relies on local governments to collect on its behalf.

The plan met almost no resistance among the Snoqualmie City Council. However, despite a unanimous passage on Nov. 2, the majority of North Bend councilmembers, most notably Chris Garcia and Brenden Elwood, expressed frustration that the district was not providing enough support for the city’s growing schools.

“I am massively frustrated with the state of our schools in North Bend,” Garcia said at the council’s Oct. 19 meeting. “I think North Bend residents and their families deserve better than what they’re getting.”

The district has had to deal with a significant influx of students over the past two decades. Since 2010, the Snoqualmie Valley has been one of the state’s fastest growing areas, and has one of the largest youth populations in the state. Between 2010 and 2020, Snoqualmie grew 27% and North Bend grew by 32%, according to 2020 Census data. Most notable growth within the SVSD boundary is among the Snoqualmie Ridge and North Bend, according to the capital plan.

Elwood alleged the district had neglected North Bend schools, and said he has spoken with residents who feel similarly.

“We keep taking on these impact fees, but see no positive impact on our elementary school system,” he said. “I’ve been relatively rubber stamping everything the schools send because I support our schools, but after a certain point, I have to take a step back and say enough of this. The options on the table don’t smell right to me.”

In 2020, the district had the equivalent of 6,610 full-time students, a growth of almost 900 students since 2010. By 2026, the district is expected to grow to just shy of 7,200 students.

One of the ways the district has compensated for this growth is to rely on portable facilities, but the North Bend council was critical of this approach. For the 2021-2022 school year, the district has a permanent capacity for 6,486 students, with additional space for 2,004 students in its 103 portables.

Roughly 24% of the district’s capacity is in portables. That rate jumps to 36% for elementary schools. According to its capital plan, future enrolment growth, combined with a desire to reduce class sizes, will also further increase the need for elementary capacity.

In the short term, the district will continue to rely on portables, according to its capital plan. However, the district is trying to reduce its dependence on portables, with many elementary schools reaching limits for more portable classrooms due to space or building code restrictions.

Ryan Stokes, the SVSD assistant superintendent of finance and operations, said until a new bond is passed, the district often has to balance between capacity needs and costs. Impact fees are insufficient to fund most of the district’s construction projects and support for voter-approved bonds are often necessary for large-scale improvements.

North Bend City Councilmember Alan Gothelf said although he understood the frustration, the district is limited in what it can do with impact fees by state law. He encouraged the council and community members to take their frustrations to the school board.

“If you have concerns — which we have all had for years about North Bend’s schools and elementaries— we need to make that point with the school board,” he said.

North Bend has two elementary schools: North Bend Elementary, which was built in 1962 and remodeled in 1999, and Opstad Elementary, which was built in 1988.

Since 2005, the district has adopted several facility projects to address growth in the area, including the construction of Cascade View Elementary in 2005 and Twin Falls Middle School in 2008.

In 2015, using a bond passed by voters, the district constructed a sixth elementary school, Timber Ridge, and expanded Mount Si High School. The projects were finished in 2016 and 2021, respectively.

Since the new high school was built, capacity constraints were relieved to some degree at the secondary levels, but struggles persist at the primary level. Timber Ridge is almost eight classrooms larger than any other elementary school in the district, but it was at capacity upon opening.

“When you’re building a new elementary school, we’ve noticed a lot of families tend to move there,” Stokes said. “We want to size to future growth, but sometimes that growth can be difficult to determine.”

Stokes said although the district collects money from several jurisdictions, it does not monitor where the money from each jurisdiction is spent, but rather uses all of the funding where the needs are.

“When North Bend was in a growth moratorium, we were using impact fees from other jurisdictions to put portables at those schools,” he said.

Every elementary school in the district during the 2020-2021 school year had a greater enrollment than it had permanent capacity, which excludes portables. The district’s five elementary schools’ enrollment was on average 27% higher than its permanent capacity.

Fall City Elementary was 62% over its permanent enrollment, Snoqualmie Elementary was 41% over, and North Bend Elementary was 33% over. The remaining three schools — Cascade View, Opstad and Timber Ridge — were 19%, 16% and 13% over permanent enrollment, respectively.

District enrollment rebounded slightly in 2021, but enrollment is still below pre-pandemic numbers, the Valley Record previously reported. Stokes said the pandemic has made enrollment predictions, particularly for kindergarten students, more difficult to estimate.

A new, seventh elementary school is projected to be needed by 2023, and is included in the six-year planning period. The district owns property in both Snoqualmie and North Bend, but the location of the new school is undetermined. The funds needed to build this school will likely require a voter-approved bond.

In 2020, just three weeks prior to the pandemic shutdown, the school board started a Facilities Study Committee to examine alternative elementary capacity options. This included looking at the construction of a new elementary school or additions to current structures, but the pandemic delayed the committee.

“We thought talking about bonds at a time with economic instability would be problematic,” Stokes said.

Stokes said they have recently restarted the committee and hope to have recommendations by the fall or winter. He said they also plan to send out a community survey and will be going to each school to understand its needs.

“One of the things I noticed was missing when I got here was a long-range facilities plan that looks at the capacity of our buildings and that’s been underway this fall,” said SVSD Superintendent Lance Gibbon, who is in his first year with the district. “That’s certainly a priority for me. I am here and we want to be partners with North Bend.”