Our student population keeps growing, and Mount Si High School is again running out of space. The portable classrooms we voted to add in 2009 are a short-term “band aid” until 2013. So how do we expand its capacity?

We can’t add more portables, or add another wing. Mount Si’s small property and flood zone location prohibits expanding its footprint any further. We could build another high school, but that is very expensive & has been voted down. We could build UP—by demolishing & rebuilding sections as two stories—but that is almost as expensive as a second high school, and way too disruptive while kids try to attend school during 2 years of construction.

The answer is right across the street: make the adjacent Snoqualmie Middle School building a part of Mount Si High School. It adds enough space to MSHS for the long-term future. Replacing this middle school is much less expensive and disruptive than expanding the high school. It saves money by using property the district already owns on Snoqualmie Ridge—property paid for by Ridge developers—and by re-using the design of Twin Falls Middle School.

I commend the school board for finding a creative, less-expensive way to expand our high school, one that makes the most of what we already have. I urge you to join me in voting “yes” on this plan on Feb. 8.

Jim Reitz

North Bend