Lake Washington School District’s new Long-Term Facilities Planning Task Force has its work cut out for them. The task force, 63 members from community, business, senior citizen, staff and student representatives, needs to study, analyze and make recommendations on when and when to build classrooms and more for the fast-growing school district.

The task force met for the first time Dec. 3 and heard from school district personnel about the task ahead.

Current enrollment stands at 26,615. It is projected to grow to close to 30,000 by 2021-22. Classroom space in the district will not accommodate these growing numbers, school officials said. In addition, the district must address some aging facilities. Complicating the task, the district’s last three bond measures did not garner the 60 percent voter approval needed to pass.

The task force’s first step was to draft a work plan that includes activities to engage the broader community throughout the process. The first such activity will be an online open house in January. That process will seek input on facilities planning needs as well as task force and sub-committee process and scope.

The materials presented at the meeting will be posted on a dedicated webpage on the school district’s web site at www.lwsd.org/News/Long-term-facilities/Pages. Those who are interested in following the task force’s work can sign up to receive email updates when additional information or reports are added to the page.