Edmonds school board discusses proposed boundary changes

Published 3:45 pm Wednesday, October 14, 2026

LYNNWOOD — Dozens of parents attended an Edmonds school board meeting Tuesday with concerns as the board discussed proposed boundary changes.

A district committee has been studying boundary changes since the beginning of the year. The last time the district changed its boundaries was nearly 30 years ago, board members said Tuesday.

The new map creates an attendance boundary for the district’s new middle school, Salish Middle School, which is scheduled to open in fall 2028. With the new school, the district is also moving sixth grade from elementary to middle schools. The map will also ensure that each elementary and middle school has a balanced number of students, school board members said.

Much of the concern Tuesday came from parents in a neighborhood in the southeastern portion of the district in unincorporated Bothell. According to the parents, more than 150 families in the neighborhood would be moving from Hilltop Elementary to Hazelwood Elementary under the proposed map.

Ashish Buddha has two kids at Hilltop Elementary, one in third grade and another in kindergarten. He said he and many other families moved to the neighborhood specifically for Hilltop.

“It took more than a year for my son to get used to his new school, and now we are talking about another transition, only for him to go to a temporary school and then move to another middle school in two years,” Buddha said during public comment. “So these are multiple transitions in a short period of time, and it’s going to be very challenging for him to keep up with that.”

Some parents said they are working on obtaining outside legal counsel and asked the board to delay its final decision — currently scheduled for Oct. 27 — until the end of January. Parents allege the district is violating its boundary changes policy, which states that “to the extent possible,” the district will try to minimize disruption of students’ learning programs, maintain or improve curriculum and maintain established neighborhood groupings.

“In the last six months, we’ve been trying to come here regularly to speak up,” parent Fahad Fakih told The Herald. “We spoke to different members. We tried to channel our views through comments and the district, but it seems like none of our concerns were addressed. It felt like, ‘Hey, we are listening, but we’ll do whatever we want to do.’”

Board members said that the committee did take feedback from families into account when drafting the proposed map.

“Not being able to make a change or not making a change is not the same thing as hearing people and considering that change,” Superintendent Rebecca Miner said during the meeting. “The requests were heard, they were taken back to the committee for consideration. … They did make adjustments, they can’t make every adjustment that people wanted.”

Additional concerns Tuesday came from parents of Sherwood Elementary students. Students in some neighborhoods will attend four schools in four years — going to a temporary site while the new Westgate Elementary is being built, attending school in the new building for a year and then going to middle school.

“My concern is that repeated school changes, compounded by construction-related disruption, could create a cumulative burden that enrollment numbers alone cannot capture,” parent Emily Oliver said.

Written public comments showed that parents of students at Westgate Elementary, Edmonds Elementary, Meadowdale Middle and Seaview Elementary also have concerns over their children attending several schools in a short time frame.

Board President Nancy Katims said the district doesn’t know how many students would be changing schools as a result of the boundary changes.

Miner said it’s important for the district to stay with its scheduled timeline so families have time to request school changes. For elementary schools, applications are typically open through the end of the spring. Secondary school applications are typically open until mid-February.

Katims said the district is overdue for a boundary change, as some schools are overcrowded and the district is dealing with a limited amount of state funding.

“I could go on and on about the constraints and challenges of developing optimum school assignments across our district, but no matter what, I do know we can’t please everyone,” she said.

Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.