As a student of the Tahoma school district and a resident of the Maple Valley area, I feel the need to tell people how much the area has grown since I arrived here. Hundreds of houses have been built and more than you can count in shops, but could it be too much for Maple Valley?

Maple Valley is one of the fastest growing towns in the Seattle area, but the big problem is that according to the Mortgage Professional It shows what changes had to be made. The fear is that if the town grows then it will grow to an unprecedented level, then people will start to get worried. A population increase could mean that there is little to no room for the students of the Tahoma School District. It could also lead to other changes: more schools, more teachers, more books, food, supplies, transportation, amount of trash and recycling.

I spoke to the principal of Tahoma High School, Terry Duty. “ I love the school, I think there could be some changes but other than those changes I think that most people like the school,” said Duty.

This was interesting, even the principal of Tahoma School District thinks that there can be changes around the school, but people are happy with the new schools. That’s good, with people and other schools seeing the potential of this school. Tahoma may be a place others could emulate.

I had to ask him about why there was a sudden increase of kids at the school. As the first few weeks felt crowded and cramped for many. “I think that fewer students did running start so that could be a big change, about 100 more, the other is that the teachers have more periods, with the more periods that means bigger classrooms,” said Duty.

I then asked him if Tahoma can hold the capacity that the new projects that are going on and his response was“the school is not at capacity, there are times that not all the classes are filled and that could mean that new kids could be added to the count, about 500 more kids could go in,” said Duty. 500 is a lot of kids, especially when to take into account the 2700 kids we have already in the school right now.

In my next question, I asked why the gym was so small? “Well, we had to look at how many people go to the gym a year, about 4 times and so we had it built it for about 2000 kids, however, I do feel that it was also a construction problem and it wasn’t worth the money,” said Duty. Because the growth could continue, Mr. Duty would like to see another campus, not another school. Instead, a building that has a specific purpose, so that those students with that demographic can learn there. He did also mention that based on the past history there could see a change back to a junior high system.

One of the biggest things that we talked about was filling the spots, what does that mean? “It means that when the seniors graduate that is about 600 kids that are going out of the system and so for us to keep that growth we need about 600 new kindergartners going into the program so we can have a steady stream [of students into Tahoma],” said Duty.

I feel that people should take note of this because sophomore and freshmen are the ones who are going to witness the growth first hand and they are the ones that will be first to see the impact of these changes.