The budget axe fell hard in the Lake Washington School District (LWSD), but it did not hit any of the 1,000-plus teachers working in the district.

LWSD Superintendent Dr. Chip Kimball and his staff deserve a big round of applause for listening to the community and devising a budget that keeps the focus on academic excellence.

Amazingly, district administrators recommended no teachers be laid off in its proposed budget, presented to the school district board earlier this month.

Laying off teachers means class sizes will increase. That won’t be the case in this school district, which is great news.

Class sizes are already high enough — Washington state ranks 46th in the nation for class size, according to the National Education Association, the national teacher’s union.

District residents said loud and clear that they didn’t want to see classroom sizes increase — and the school district listened.

Instead of cutting teachers and increasing class sizes, the district plans to save money in other ways, which include eliminate more than 10 administrative positions, reducing teacher development resources, imposing huge hikes in fees for all-day kindergarten and athletics, and contracting out operation or close the Juanita High School swimming pool.

District staff put in a lot of time and effort, listening to the community through a Web site survey and a series of public meetings to come up with the “no teacher layoff” proposal, something many school districts could not do. The Bellevue School District anticipates laying off 60 teachers and the Issaquah School District plans to lay off up to 158 teachers.

“It’s time and labor intensive,” said school district spokesperson Kathryn Reith of the budget process. “We had a core group that spent a lot of hours determining how we were going to do the process. A lot of effort was put forth.”

The district should be commended for that effort. Any other year, the community would have had a fit to see high school athletic fees jump nearly 300 percent from $75 to $275. But we are in a recession — and in tough times we have to prioritize our needs. The community said teachers are the top priority in this school district, so cuts and fee increases had to be made elsewhere.

So the next time you drive by a car wash, where students are raising money for athletics, make a donation. Know that your money is going to a good cause. Sure, the fees are higher for students to participate in sports, but students will not lose dedicated teachers to budget cuts.

Bill Chritianson is the Editor of the Redmond Reporter.