For the high school students of Interlake, the end of October opens the lovely prospect of Halloween, trick-or-treating, and another month of learning. However, it’s not the same story for middle schools. Though news may have not yet reached you, something that will change the lives of many middle schoolers has just made its debut – middle school consolidation.

Just before October, the district held a consolidation meeting with parents across all middle schools to discuss their troubles. Attendants listened to the explanation of consolidation from district officials and provided their own opinions. The district has been worried about enrollment declination, a problem attributed to current dropping enrollment rates (by 8% since the pandemic), reducing birth rate in Bellevue (by 15% over 8 years), and the sky-rocketing house prices (a whopping 42% increase since the pandemic started). The district projects a major decline of enrollment in Bellevue School District in the coming years. With these factors driving away students and families, the district means to merge schools to create those with larger numbers of students – in other words, consolidate them. Otherwise, they say, the budget and enrollment problems may lead to potentially negative impacts, such as cutting mental health services, decreasing elective choices, and minimizing academic intervention. Therefore, they plan to have a recommendation ready by January for the public to look over. But this puts many current middle school families in a bewildered, anxious dilemma. It’s a question as to whether the negatives outweigh the advantages.

Consolidating an existing middle school may lead to various major problems. First off, students will either need to move to a new neighborhood or spend lots of time commuting if they have to go to a new school, which will also change their schedule patterns. This is inevitable if consolidation happens and is sometimes extremely frustrating for these families. Next, students will have to make unnecessary adjustments to a new environment, new circumstances, and unfamiliar learning content, which is an obstacle to both mental health, physical well-being, and academic success. Finally, teachers. Middle school teachers will have to find other schools to teach at if their school is consolidated with another. It will be sad to see some of our great teachers move off to other places.

Numerous parents have already begun to act by attending the consolidation meetings and sharing out in all the middle schools – Highland, Odle, Tyee, Tillicum, Chinook. They have been trying to formulate solutions to the enrollment problems that do not include consolidation and are protesting the closing of schools. You may see signs posted all around Bellevue, like “Keep Odle Open”. Parents of Odle even staged a protest just outside of the school, where they carried similar signs and explained to KOMO News interviewers about their opinions. Parents are particularly wanting more clear information regarding this issue, as one parent states, “There is a true lack of clarity in the overall data analysis process…”. Another parent voiced his concerns: “Making such a drastic change based on such outlier data – that actually worries me a lot.” It’s clear that parents would like the district to provide clearer, substantial information and make its decisions after clear consideration, instead of giving parents the impression of a quick choice based on extreme data points. All in all, parents are making quite a big effort to help the entire middle school community.

Now, we’ve talked a lot about middle school news. You might be wondering, why include information about middle schools in the Interlake Inquirer? Well, this will also affect high schoolers. First, middle school is a place full of lush memories, friends, and good teachers, so it’s reasonable to say that we high schoolers want to keep these middle schools open for the good memories and joyful times. Also, students and teachers who might not want closing of middle school to happen are yearning for some support. And finally, if a solution can be thought of in the place of consolidation, high schools won’t have to undergo the same process. If middle schools are consolidated, then seeing that the high school enrollment numbers have also dropped, the district may take approaches to consolidate our school too, and we want to avoid that.

Therefore, as a member of our community, find ways to speak up and act. It could be anything that you want to do to keep your childhood memories: help fellow students and the district find a better way to solve the problem. We are all in this together, and your opinion matters.