Newport Hills: No School Changes -- Students To Stay In Renton District

BURIEN - About 325 students in south Bellevue's Newport Hills neighborhood will stay put in Renton public schools, a state boundary board unanimously decided last night.

But the board's vote might not end the controversy. Newport Hills resident Doug Roach, who collected more than 1,000 petition signatures favoring a move to Bellevue schools, said he'll sue the state.

"If they were to consider the overwhelming will of the overwhelming majority of the people affected by this decision," he said, "clearly the result would be the other way."

Bellevue annexed the neighborhood in 1993. Many residents identify with Bellevue and pass the Bellevue district's Tyee Middle School and Newport High School on their way to work.

But the boundary board figured the only effects of letting them secede from Renton were bad ones: The Newport Hills kids would cram adjoining Bellevue schools and require hundreds of students to change schools in both districts.

"It would cause a significant amount of disruption," said W. Carl Stegman of the Regional Committee, which met at Puget Sound Educational Service District headquarters in Burien.

Bellevue Assistant Superintendent Howard Johnson testified Nov. 12 that his district's Newport Heights, Somerset and Sunset elementary schools are full, so the proposed change would have caused some south Bellevue students to be bused north of Interstate 90. Bellevue might have needed to add more portable classrooms, boot the YMCA from the former Lake Heights Elementary School or remove Eastside Catholic High School from the old Ringdall Junior High building it leases.

Many Newport Hills parents already got waivers for their children to attend Bellevue schools. But Roach said his eighth-grade daughter at Tyee can't enter Newport next year, because there's not enough room for "out of district students." In his interpretation of state law, the petition signatures by themselves are sufficient to trigger annexation to Bellevue schools.

The brouhaha already is promoting possible changes in the Renton district, which might add some accelerated math and science classes, said Superintendent Dolores Gibbons, who discussed the idea with some Newport Hills parents this week.

Asked if he considers Renton schools academically inferior to Bellevue's, Roach said yes, pointing to test scores. On the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, Tyee outranked Renton's McKnight Junior High. Gibbons replied that income and parents' education are the main factors in student achievement regardless of district.

Among students with at least one college-educated parent, Tyee's reached the 88th percentile in math, while McKnight's scored at the 68th percentile.

Gibbons criticized the mind-set of people who harbor negative images of Renton.

She also said that if parents feel their children's success depends on being surrounded by more college-bound classmates, they're free to move into the Bellevue district.

Mike Lindblom's phone message number is 206-515-5631. His e-mail address is: mlin-new@seatimes.com