Save Russell Ridge School - Maple Valley, WA

Save Russell Ridge would like to promote change within the Tahoma School District! It's time to shake things up with some new blood and fresh new ideas! Jessica Zielinski is the person to do just that! Please consider voting for a new candidate this year, someone who has children currently in the school district and who understands the weight of her decisions and how they effect your children. We need someone who can be an advocate for ALL Tahoma children!

An Open Letter to the Tahoma Board of Education:

Regarding the vote you will cast concerning the potential closure of Russell Ridge Center, the question you have before you is, "Which vote does the most good?"

Does a vote to close Russell Ridge do more good for the students of this district or does a vote to keep Russell Ridge open do more good?

So, let's look at each.

A close vote ... who do you help with a close vote? Since we now know that this school takes NOTHING from the other schools, not money, not space, not teachers, not additional time or effort from administration or staff, nothing, there's no help to any student in this district if you close this school. The budget provided by the state is more than enough to operate this school. There is no budget shortfall. The proof of an audit that supposedly took funding away was never provided. No such audit occurred and the funds provided by the state for the students of Russell Ridge are more than enough to keep this school operating in the black.

An open vote ... who do you help with an open vote? Most obviously, you help the current students for whom this school is home. Less obvious are the students out there who are struggling now whose parents don't even know this alternative exists. And maybe less obvious, but certainly just as real, you help the kids who would never go to this school by keeping this alternative available for the kids who WILL use it. There's an effort to reduce crowding using alternative experiences like Russell Ridge that the administration has not explored at all. Thus, you help both students and non-students of Russell Ridge, you help every student in the Tahoma district.

Now the other side of the coin, who does a close vote hurt? Most obviously, the kids of Russell Ridge. Less obvious, but on a larger scale, closing this school hurts the district. Closing this school takes away an important option and makes the district less robust and more rigid, giving those kids who need alternative options no choice in the Tahoma district. As well, the funds that are coming from the state due to the enrollment of these Russell Ridge students, those funds will not be finding their way into other Tahoma schools. Those funds are for these kids and it's highly unlikely that these kids are going to return to their neighborhood schools. After all, their neighborhood schools didn't work for them or they wouldn't have left to begin with. They're not going back, which means those funds are, most certainly not going to the Tahoma district.

And finally, who does an open vote hurt? ... NO ONE! Absolutely no harm is done by keeping this school open. No budgetary disaster looms, there's no risk of loosing state funding because of supposed low test scores, and no onerous process is placed on the staff or district to emerge from being a priority school, as we've learned, Russell Ridge is NOT a priority school.

The duty of this board is to do the best thing for the most students possible, to watch out for the underdog and to ensure that students get the best education for the tax dollars spent. I think of it in similar terms as the duty and oath of a doctor ... "Practice two things in your dealings: either help or do not harm". In this situation, a close vote will NOT help, but it will certainly harm, while an open vote does exactly the opposite, it both helps AND does no harm.

Please vote to keep this school open and, if you are a vote to keep the school open, but your board member peers are a vote to close this school, please fight for us, please be the voice of reason and please fight for these kids, these underdogs.

Thank you, Larry Baldwin