Earlier this year I informed you that the district entered into an agreement with Eastlake Community Church to lease classroom space at their facility adjacent to the Administration Center to house the Northshore Primary Center (NPC). The NPC is part of our strategy to respond to continued enrollment growth significantly impacting north end schools.

This continued growth has required us in recent years to move some kindergarten students from their neighborhood schools to other schools with room. During the past several months, design, permitting and construction at the NPC has fallen behind schedule. Without full confidence that the NPC will be available for students at the start of the 2015–16 school year, we recently made the decision to house all kindergarten students next year at our existing schools. Assignments for next year are:

• All kindergarten students (half-day and full-day) from Crystal Springs and Canyon Creek will attend Frank Love.

• Full-day kindergarten students from Shelton View will also attend Frank Love.

• All kindergarten students (half-day and full-day) from Kokanee will attend Maywood Hills.

• Full-day kindergarten students from Westhill will attend Kenmore Elementary School.

I recognize that these continued kindergarten moves are less than ideal and put further strain on the receiving schools as they accommodate growing numbers of neighborhood kindergarten students plus those from other schools. I cannot begin to express my appreciation and gratitude for the patience and understanding of impacted families. Likewise, the teachers, principals and support staff at sending and receiving schools have gone above and beyond to make this as positive and seamless an experience as possible for students and families. My sincere appreciation for their flexibility and grace is also beyond words.

While we believe we have a plan in place that will meet our needs for 2015–16, we also expect to have continued enrollment growth that will further tax our classroom space in 2016–17 prior to the implementation of a longer term solution with the opening of North Creek High School, grade reconfiguration and boundary adjustments in the 2017–18 school year. We are pursuing completion of the NPC to address continued enrollment growth in 2016–17. We are also exploring other options to meet the classroom needs of our growing school communities now and into the future.

The Northshore School District has a long, proud and distinguished history of creatively responding to growth from a handful of schools in the 1950s to the 32 schools that comprise our district today. Our current challenges look very similar to prior periods of growth across the greater Northshore community. And as in the past, we will again meet these challenges while continuing to provide a world class education to the young people in our schools today, and those we will welcome in future years.

Larry Francois is the Northshore School District superintendent.