Originally Published in the November 26th Print Publication
Over the past few years, graphs from Public School Review have shown that the student population at Skyview Middle School has been steadily increasing. It hit a spike in 2020, revealing a 25% increase, from around 1000 students. Even after that, the population seems to be growing again, currently at 1157 students. What does this mean for Skyview and its future North Creek High School freshmen?
As student enrollment increases, the need for additional classroom seats grows as well. In many districts, there isn’t an abundance of extra classroom space into which these new seats can expand. This leads to the necessity of constructing new classrooms to meet the demand. As seen with Skyview Middle School, to meet the growing population’s demands, they commenced the construction of a whole new building in 2018, Building F, which was completed in 2020 and opened in 2022. Skyview Middle School wasn’t the only school that has seen expansion though.
Fernwood Elementary School has also seen expansion and construction lately. First starting planning in June 2024, the expansion project will remove 16 portables and replace them with a new two-story building that adds 13 new classrooms, 2 music rooms, 2 multi-purpose rooms, small group breakout areas and rooms, inclusive restrooms, a new main office, and a new parking lot for parent pick-up/drop-off. As of November 2024, construction has started.
According to the Northshore School District, one of the main purposes of the expansion is to address district growth, which has seen a 10% or 2,000 new students expansion in the past 6 years, according to the Northshore School District’s “FAQs—Growth” page. Not to forget that Fernwood’s students will go to Skyview Middle School after completing elementary school. The question is, will all this expansion be enough? Or will we still need more, even after pouring millions of dollars into these expansion projects? When the district is increasing by 300 students each year at the elementary school level, which is about half of one elementary school’s enrollment, we will only have to wait and see.
