Deer Park School District asking voter approval of $62 million bond and $11 million levy

Deer Park is growing, and its schools are feeling it.

According to the U.S. census bureau, the town’s population grew about 17% between 2016 and 2021. More than a thousand new homes are expected to be built in the area over the next several years, and total enrollment in Deer Park School District is projected to increase by almost 18% from 2021 to 2031, with most of that growth being in its elementary schools.

To manage its growth, the district will ask voters to approve a $62 million bond to be paid over 21 years on the February ballot. The bond would fund a new elementary school, which would serve grades 2-5, a new transportation center to replace the district’s nearly 100-year-old bus garage, a modernization of Deer Park Middle School and a renovation of Arcadia Elementary, which currently serves grades 3-5.

Though the district is asking voters for $62 million, the projects would cost a total of $85 million. If the bond passes, the district will receive a $23 million state match as part of Washington’s School Construction Assistance Program, which provides assistance to eligible school districts that are undertaking major new construction or modernization projects, district officials said.

If the measure passes, Deer Park preschool students – now in portables – will move into Deer Park Elementary School, and Arcadia will become a location for Deer Park Home Link programs.

Deer Park School District’s Home Link, which provides on- and off-site learning, is an educational program that connects home-schooled students to district resources through a parent-school partnership. There are about 600 students enrolled in the program, according to the district.

Right now, many Home Link programs take place in the district office building, and it’s a tight fit. Makeshift classrooms are set up with partitions in the 102-year-old building’s hallways.

“This would allow (Home Link students) to have their own space, and plenty of space, and meet their needs,” Superintendent Alexa Allman said of the bond.

Arcadia Elementary School is just as crowded.

Six classrooms are outside in three portables, the gym is split in half to double as a cafeteria, the old cafeteria has been converted into more classrooms and the library has been moved into a smaller room, with its previous space becoming an intervention classroom for small group instruction.

“We actually have to double up on PE classes, so they’re using half of a space to share two PE classrooms,” Allman said. “It’s very crowded in there, so there’s not a lot of room for the kids to run.”

Like Arcadia, Deer Park Elementary has been moving classes outside into portables as its student population grows. The district shouldn’t keep doing this, Allman said.

“Those portables cost a minimum of $500,000 each … It’s not a long-term solution, it’s a Band-Aid, so we don’t think that that’s a financially responsible solution.”

If the bond passes, Deer Park School District would buy four parcels of land from the City of Deer Park at a discounted price, one of which would become the location of the new elementary school.

“We’re thinking that kids would be able to move in 2026,” Allman said.

As for the district’s bus garage, “the transportation center does not have internet access. Additionally, the bus drivers do not have a space for convening meetings and trainings, nor do they have a sink to wash dishes (they are currently using the bathroom sink),” the district’s website reads. The center’s parking lot and buildings are in disrepair.

Another of the parcels would become the location of the new transportation center.

“It would be amazing (if the bond passes), especially for my drivers,” said Kerri Leliefeld, transportation director with the district. Leliefeld estimated the average age of Deer Park’s bus drivers to be 55. With a new transportation center, buses would be covered, and drivers would no longer have to scrape ice and snow from their windshields in the winter.

If the bond passes, Leliefeld said, drivers “can walk somewhere where it’s safe, they can drive where it’s safe.”

The district’s last bond was passed in 2008 and funded a renovation of Deer Park High School. That bond will be paid off in December 2025. Allman described the new bond as a replacement of the 2008 bond.

“It’s not a new tax, per se, that taxpayers will see, it’s a continuation,” she said.

If the bond passes, it is expected to raise current property tax rates by $0.54 per thousand in assessed property value.

The district has a second measure on the February ballot: It wants to renew its Educational Programs and Operations Levy, which will expire at the end of 2024.

“That goes to fund all of our athletics, extracurricular activities, drama, music, FFA, DECA, cheerleading, drama, all of the things that the state does not fund,” Allman said. “About 6% of our general budget in the Deer Park School District depends on that levy.”

The estimated levy rate will remain the same, $1.50 per thousand in assessed property value, and would raise up to about $11 million over a three-year period.

Deer Park’s levy ballot measure needs 50% of votes to pass, but the bond needs a supermajority, 60% of votes, to pass.