Port Blakely changes Issaquah Highlands plan; District committee to consider new information

 

Issaquah Highlands property originally set aside for a Microsoft business campus will be converted to single family residences, both houses and town homes.  That change, confirmed today in a conversation between Superintendent Janet Barry and Judd Kirk, President of Port Blakely Communities, will increase the number of students attending the new Highlands elementary school opening in 2006.  The changed plans also represent opportunities for the District’s Boundary Advisory Committee meeting now.

 

Superintendent Barry says, “I learned that Port Blakely is planning to convert the property originally set aside for Microsoft to single family residences.  This is new information for us – not previously projected because the Microsoft option had kept the land tied up – however, Mr. Kirk confirmed in a conversation with me this afternoon that they are moving forward with the conversion.”

 

According to Port Blakely’s new plans, students in the new homes would begin attending school in September 2007.  The 500-700 single family dwellings could result in 210 more students than anyone knew about before this announcement.

 

Referring to the Boundary Advisory Committee, Superintendent Barry said, “This new information will be factored into the work now being done by the Boundary Committee, in particular, their conversations about which students will attend E-14 when it opens.”

 

The Boundary Advisory Committee, who will discuss this new information at their meeting on Thursday night, will continue their discussions about boundary options.  They may also begin considering immediate housing strategies such as possible elimination of full day kindergarten, a continued kindergarten center, additional classroom space options on the plateau, and, perhaps in the long term, improved alignment of elementary, middle, and high school boundaries as the District prepares for construction of the district’s fifth middle school.

 

 

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