WSD may readjust school director zones

The Washougal School District (WSD) is looking at ways to readjust its board member zones based on population changes reflected in the 2020 United States Census data.

School districts are required to review their director zones after the completion of a census process to ensure equitable geographical representation for elections, according to a news release issued by the district.

“This is something that has to be done every 10 years,” Les Brown, WSD’s director of communications and technology, said during the Washougal School Board’s meeting on Sept. 13. “The goal of this process is to align the board of directors’ zones with census population estimates. There’s a state law that governs this that includes a whole bunch of factors, but the biggest thing is to make sure that each of the director districts are as nearly equal as possible in terms of the number of people in each one of them. We’re also supposed to make sure that they make sense regarding the geography of the district and, to the extent that it’s feasible, coincide with the natural topography and the existing boundaries.”

The district will post the current and proposed director zone maps on its website, and the board is set to vote on the proposed plan on Tuesday, Oct. 25.

The school district contracted with Sammamish Data Systems, a Redmond, Washington-based mapping company, in 2021, to develop a proposal for new director district boundaries based on the most recent census data.

If the board approves the proposal, District No. 1 would go from 4,655 residents to 4,441; District 2, from 4, to 4,438; District 3, from 4,261 to 4,456; District 4, from 4,477 to 4,448; and District No. 5, from 4,542 to 4,451.

“Since the last realignment of director districts, there has been a small shift in population growth,” according to the news release. “Currently, our director districts vary in population from a low of 4,261 in District 3 to a high of 4,655 in District 1. The proposed new director district boundaries would balance these populations so that all five districts would have approximately 4,447 residents.”

The school district has experienced “a slightly slower rate of growth compared to the rest of Clark County” during the past 10 years, according to Brown.

“But we’ve still experienced (growth) over the last decade,” Brown said. “Each one of the districts have more people in them, but some of them grew more quickly than others. The goal of this process is to create districts that are as equal as possible. Our target number was 4,447. One of the districts is exactly that number, but none of them (are more than 10 higher or lower than that number).”

The district is divided into five geographic districts, one for each board seat. School board candidates must run for the seat of the director district they live in.

“By creating five equal director districts, geographic diversity is ensured on the school board,” the district stated in a news release.

The process will not change any neighborhood school boundaries or greatly impact school board voters since voters in the WSD boundaries vote on all five school board positions.