A good day for schools
Congratulations to all eight Pierce County school districts that had levy measures on Tuesday’s ballot and saw them pass by fairly comfortable margins. Voters should be given extra credit this year for sorting through the tangle of school-funding reform talk in Olympia – and regrettably, that talk won’t translate into real action until 2017 at the earliest.
Four years from now, when most of these local districts are scheduled to resubmit renewal levies, they likely won’t have to put voters through the same confusion. By then, lawmakers will be fully compliant with Supreme Court orders to make levy collections equitable all over the state. Fingers crossed, knock on wood.
Bethel School District recorded the only loss Tuesday when its $236.7 million bond request was defeated. Officials in the Spanaway-based district need only look at their own history for the encouragement to try again. While they required nine attempts before passing a bond in 2001, it took just two tries to pass the next one in 2006.
This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 9:00 AM with the headline "A good day for schools."