I have never written a letter like this before but I feel compelled to share because I, like many others, moved my family to Maple Valley because of Tahoma School District’s stellar reputation. Now after being here for less than a year that excitement has turned to frustration and downright fear.

I had no idea the hornet’s nest we moved into! Yes, the teachers are amazing but I have become aghast at the overcrowding, substandard facilities, lack of community support, lack of funding.

I now worry about my children’s health — they attend Lake Wilderness Elementary with a myriad of structural and mechanical issues as well as known mold problems.

I worry about them socially — some of their friends are already being redistricted out of LWES because of overcrowding.

I worry about their future in this school system — which elementary school will they end up at next year? Or the year after that?

We moved here from out of state and bought a house site unseen as to avoid moving our children twice and ease their transition.

What do I tell them when they are involuntarily uprooted again? And what happens when that school becomes overcrowded?

From what I hear we’re nearly there already which has prompted talks about rotating year round schedules.

This doesn’t even take into account the teachers! How many of our amazing teachers are going to stick around under such poor conditions?

I am beside myself. This is not what we read about when we were doing our research on area school districts.

Where was this info beforehand? Sadly what I hear after talking to many families and neighbors is that far too many of us have no idea the state our schools and school district as a whole is in.

Regretfully, I doubt people would be moving here in droves if they did.

Jaime Shackford

Maple Valley