Wenatchee Schools to Hold Public Meeting on Plan for Individual School Board Districts

The Wenatchee School District is asking for public comment on its plan to move from an at-large School Board to individual voting districts.

The School Board has found that it's current at-large system may violate the Washington Voting Rights Act. 

The proposal to correct that problem includes having four members in specific districts elected only by voters within those geographic areas, along with one remaining at-large district.

The process requires public notice of the proposed redistricting plan, a comment period, and a public hearing. 

The Wenatchee School District is holding a public hearing on June 14th, which will take place at 6 PM at the District’s central office located at 235 Sunset Ave, Wenatchee.

The district is also taking response before the public hearing through written comment submitted at the district office as well as by email at white.k@wenatcheeschools.org

If the Board approves a new election system by November 7 of this year, a new election for all Wenatchee School District Board positions would take place in next year's November General Election.

Once the election of all the members takes place, the District could then choose to stagger the terms of its positions.

In September 2021 the district contracted with Sammamish Data Systems to develop a proposal for director districts based on the 2020 census data.

These boundaries are completely unrelated to school attendance boundaries: this process will not change any neighborhood school boundaries.

The proposed voting district boundaries would balance the population within the Wenatchee school district boundary so that all four voting districts would have approximately 11,729 residents. 

Proposed maps and demographic detail are available on the district website.