2020 Census impels change to school board director districts

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, November 10, 2021

A bump in population over the past 10 years has Sequim and other school districts re-configuring their boundaries for future board elections.

After learning more about the changes to district population growth from Bob Schweitzer of Sammamish Data Systems Inc. at the Nov. 1 meeting, Sequim school board directors agreed to have Schweitzer prepare possible reconfiguration of the three school board districts.

Three of the five-member board of directors must live in one of three zones with roughly equal number of residents — District 1, most of the territory west of the Dungeness River to the district line near Blue Mountain Road; District 2, that includes the northeast portion of downtown Sequim and territories north to the Jamestown area; and, District 3, all other areas east, including Bell Hill, Diamond Point and a portion of Jefferson County — while two are at-large directors who may live in any part of the district.

The director districts only define where directors for those three districts live; all voters in the school district vote for the five board directors.

The redistricting also does not affect boundaries for which of Sequim’s two elementary schools students will attend, directors noted at the meeting.

The 2020 Census shows the Sequim School District grew from 29,342 in 2010 to 33,260 by 2020, Schweitzer noted.

The “ideal” population for the three districts would be about 11,087 residents per district, he said, but District 3 (Sequim’s east end) grew by 3.8 percent, out-pacing the other two.

“Your three director districts are a little bit out of balance,” Schweitzer said, but that the correction shouldn’t be too difficult: District 1 and District 2 need to grow slightly while District 3 needs to shrink.

Schweitzer said he and other planners adjusting district boundary lines do take current board director addresses into account; redistricting cannot be used to favor or disfavor a political party, and each board member is themselves recognized as a political party, he said.

Currently, Larry Jeffryes represents District 1, Brian Kuh represents District 2 and Jim Stoffer represents District 3, while Brandino Gibson and Eric Pickens represent at-large positions.

The redistricting process should keep boundaries contiguous, Schweitzer said.

Any changes would be subject to a public hearing before the board could adopt them, he said.

Sequim board directors asked if there was any chance they could change their voting process to five at-large bids rather than two at-larges and three from distinct districts, but Schweitzer said that would not be allowed by state law.

There are some districts, he said, that elect all of their directors at-large but those districts — Port Angeles is one — have had that process grandfathered in.