The Lake Washington School District has narrowed down its possible options for redrawn school zone boundaries while revising them based on public feedback.

Among the biggest revisions is an option that would allow children in the Yarrow Ridge and Yarrow Bay Village neighborhoods to remain within the Lakeview School Zone, rather than be sent to Ben Franklin Elementary as the three previous options would have dictated.

While the first of two scenarios would still include moving 42 students, the second scenario would only move 13, and they would come from the Northup Way area. Both scenarios proposed would move 53 students out of the LWLC and into the Juanita Learning Community.

But for Bellevue resident Deanna Androski, a parent trying to keep her two children in the Lakeview Zone, even if the school board voted for scenario two, it might still be a short-term victory. As she sees it, they might come back the next year and propose to move them again, reinitiating a conflict that has spurred the idea of legal action and exhausted parents in her neighborhood.

“Our goal is to not ever have to move our kids and not repeat this battle in 12-24 months from now,” she said.

Androski, like many other Yarrow Ridge parents with kids in the Lakeview zone, has criticized the district’s rezoning proposals for what they perceive as only affecting the southend of the learning community while leaving the northeast area alone. She also said their plans did not include a study of traffic data and how it would affect parents’ ability to get their kids to new schools.

Androski also thinks that the revised scenario might just be there for the district to save face and so parents feel as though the district is listening to feedback.

“I’m still very concerned what they’re trying to do is pacify us and get us to calm down in the short term. I don’t want to have to fight this battle again… We’re still wondering why they’re choosing what they’re choosing and we’re not feeling like this is a victory, especially since we don’t know scenario two is going to pass. But we’re working as long and as hard at it as we can.”

The Lake Washington School Board studied the most recent options at a meeting Monday, according to spokesperson Kathryn Reith. The boundary committee received input from the community until Wednesday, which they will now take the feedback to review today. Reith added that eventually the committee will determine the final recommendation to present to the superintendent, who will then make her own recommendations to put forward to the school board for a final vote on Jan. 26.

LWSD is planning to rezone the school boundaries in an attempt to properly accommodate student growth by placing them in schools based on capacity and expected growth in each neighborhood. Though there were originally seven scenarios considered by the school board at a Nov. 17 study session, they were whittled down to three by December. The district sought public input on these three options for the Lake Washington Learning Community from Dec. 1-15 before reducing the scenarios to two.

All three previous scenarios for the LWLC considered in December would have had 42 Lakeview students moved to Ben Franklin Elementary and Rose Hill Middle School, a situation which drew protests from parents, particularly from the Yarrow Ridge and Yarrow Bay Village neighborhoods. Among their complaints was that they were highly invested in their children’s current schools, that to switch would have a detrimental effect on their property values and the move would essentially sever their connection to their local community.

Reith previously told the Reporter that the district is trying to keep as many neighborhoods together as possible, but “most of the time, any scenario we create isn’t perfect.” She added that public feedback would be used to determine any revisions.

Reith also said that the district must redraw school zones after the district bond failed to get 60 percent approval, which would have helped with overcrowding. In October, the district sought input on a plan to redirect funds that would go, among other things, towards installing one portable at Franklin Elementary, 10 portables at Lake Washington High School, and modifications to Juanita High School creating offices for teachers during their planning periods. The redrawn boundaries, she said, are intended to relieve congested schools and move students into ones which are not at full capacity yet.

After seeking public input on the boundary process in September, the district received over 5,000 responses from parents, with the top ranked criteria  being maintaining neighborhoods to the extent possible and minimizing the number of students and families affected.