In school districts across the Eastside, volunteers are stepping up to help pass critical school levies which provide funding for local school districts. February 9th, voters will be asked to mail back ballots in school levy elections in 17 school districts in King County. On the Eastside, those districts are
- Bellevue
- Issaquah
- Lake Washington
- Northshore (Bothell, Woodinville, and Kenmore)
- Mercer Island
- Renton
- Tukwila
- Riverview (Carnation and Duvall)
- Snoqualmie Valley
In the rest of King County, those districts holding school levy elections are:
- Enumclaw
- Vashon Island
- Tahoma
- Federal Way
- Kent
- Seattle
- Fife
- Shoreline
Washington state government is required to cover the cost of "basic education," a very limited set of programs. If a school district wants or needs to provide more for its students, they must turn to local voters for support. This support comes in the form of a local school levy. A school levy is a local tax approved by local voters that goes only to the local school district. These taxes pay for things that the state does not consider "basic" to education, including some teacher salaries, librarians, class size reduction funding, music and arts programs, athletic programs, gifted programs, and even textbooks and computers for students. In most cases, voters are voting to continue a tax that they have already been paying, not voting to raise their taxes. In King County school districts, locally approved school levies account for 20-25% of the total budget.
If you would like more information about the school levies happening in your area, here is a listing of local school levy campaign websites:
Lake Washington (Redmond and Kirkland)
Local news stories:
Mercer Island: Three school levies to go on February ballot
Issaquah: School levy campaign work begins
Snoqualmie Valley: School district eyes two levy requests on February ballot
More information:
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