July Message From Superintendent Rundle on Start of School, Construction Updates, Board Elections

Dear Mercer Island Community

I hope you are having an enjoyable summer and finding ways to relax and take advantage of the wonderful summer weather. While most of our staff and students are away, preparations for the 2023-2024 year are full steam ahead, especially for our operations and maintenance teams. Each of the projects listed, photos of which can be seen below my signature, are made possible by the capital and technology levy our community generously supports!

• New floors have been put in the weight room and wrestling room at MIHS. The weight room is used for PE classes but is also used on a regular basis by MIHS athletes and teams as part of their training programs.
• New carpet is being installed in the Performing Arts Center (PAC) and the walls and entry vestibule have been painted. A new show curtain and new scrim, which is a heavy duty cloth backdrop, have also been installed in the PAC.
• Phase 1 of construction on the new West Mercer big toy has begun. Phase 2 will start in early September. I know West Mercer students are excited about the new big toy from the questions I have received about when construction will be completed.
• We are replacing fuel pumps and repaving the transportation lot. We are also repaving portions of pavement at Lakeridge elementary and paving the walkway at MIHS from the student parking lot to the school.
• Finally, the custodian team continues their annual work detailing and cleaning each of the schools.

2023-2024 School Calendars
The first day of school for the 2023-24 school year will be Wednesday, August 30. The last day of school will be Tuesday, June 18. Our newly designed 2023-24 Academic Calendar and 2023-24 Cultural Calendar are available for download. We suggest you print these out and keep them in a handy spot to keep track of days of importance in the academic year and days of cultural importance to our community.

Enrollment and Student Management
We are excited to see that our enrollment for 2023-24 is slightly ahead of our projections. We are currently migrating to a new version of Skyward (our student information system) called Qmlativ, which will be available August 7. While Skyward and Qmlativ are not available, families can still start the enrollment process for a new MISD student on the enrollment page on our website.

School Board Elections
We have two cycles of elections for board positions 1, 3, and 5 this year. The first is a primary election for board position 5. Ballots are out right now and must be returned on or before August 1. The two candidates who receive the highest vote totals will move on to the general election in November. More information on the candidates can be found on the King County Elections website. The new school board members elected will begin their term in December.

Long Range Facility Planning
Beginning last April, a diverse group of over 30 community members came together to begin the process of updating the District’s Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP). Over the course of five meetings this committee developed recommendations for future improvements to our schools. We will be sharing the recommendations with the greater Mercer Island community this fall. You can watch the LRFP committee meetings and view the minutes of meetings on our 2023 Facility Updates page.

MIHS Radio Station (KMIH)- The Official Broadcast Voice of Seafair
Next week we will hear the U.S. Navy Blue Angels roaring over the island, which means the start of the school year is only weeks away. That roar also means our broadcast students at KMIH 88.9 The Bridge will be launching Log Boom Radio and broadcasting all the Seafair festivities, including the hydro races and Blue Angels air show, live from the Stan Sayres pits August 4 through August 6.

Our community can tune in locally on 88.9 or stream KMIH to hear all the action. And for those that want to attend the hydro races they can use the promo code “Logboom23” to get a 20% discount on tickets for the races on Saturday, August 5 and Sunday, August 6. Admission to the qualifying heats on Friday, August 4, is free. 

I am looking forward to my second year as superintendent of MISD. We have so many accomplishments to build off of and reasons to be hopeful for an even better 2023-2024. 

Sincerely,

Fred Rundle
Superintendent