By Celeste Gracey

The Issaquah School District school board made a tough decision to close Tiger Mountain Community School. While shutting the doors on any community is painful, especially one built in adversity, I commend them for doing it openly and taking input from the community seriously.

Several years ago I covered the Renton School District when it similarly decided to close its alternative high school in favor of building a facility that focused on career and technical education. The decision reflects a fundamental shift in how we equip students for the world, particularly those less likely to attend universities.

Unlike Issaquah, Renton didn’t hold public hearings. The first word of the decision came within a couple months of tearing down the building. Parents, teachers and students flooded the regular school board meetings, angry and crying. Even the state Attorney General’s office didn’t know whether their process was legal.

The Renton administration scrambled to work out education plans for each student, but many were encouraged to drop out and earn GEDs. Eventually a plan arose to offer the students a couple classes, but the support system that carried typically poor students with the roughest life circumstances to graduation was gone.

Issaquah’s decision to leave Tiger Mountain open for an additional year will give one more class of students a chance to graduate. The change reflects well on the board’s willingness to listen. Administrators now have even more time to help students transition back into the system where they once struggled.

Public hearings are a painful and time-consuming process, but they’re there for good reason. Kudos to ISD for not cheating the public of its voice.

Celeste Gracey is an award-winning journalist and freelance writer. She is former staff writer at Reporter Newspapers.