Superintendent’s Blog: Apollo 13 and Our Financial Situation, Part 2 – Embracing the Challenge of Conserving Resources

Dear BSD Students, Families and Staff, 

Welcome to the 2025–2026 school year! I hope you all had a wonderful summer vacation. It sounds like people have done everything from dipping their toes in the Pacific Coast waters and dropping their kids off at college to reading, staycationing, and listening to some fun summer music. For me, let’s just say that I need to spend the next few months ensuring KPop Demon Hunters doesn’t end up on the top of my Spotify Wrapped list at the end of the year… (if that doesn’t make sense to you, ask your kiddo).  

As you may remember from my last blog, I drew a connection between our financial challenges and the Apollo 13 mission — our own story of human ingenuity, teamwork, and shared purpose. As we kick off this new school year, I want to continue that theme with: 

Part 2: Embracing the Challenge of Conserving Resources 

When Apollo 13’s oxygen tank and engine exploded, the astronauts and mission control had to get creative with every resource they had. They conserved oxygen by limiting activity, carefully rationed fuel for course corrections, and even found ways to stay warm with minimal power. To solve problems, they used only what was available in the spacecraft. Their survival depended not on having more but on using just what they had with great precision and ingenuity. The inspiration of the Apollo 13 mission wasn’t in spite of conserving resources but in large part because of it. 

Over the next couple of years, that’s where we find ourselves as a district. We are beginning the year with tighter resources than in the past, and conservation and smart resource management will be key to our success. Here’s how that might look like as we kick off this new school year: 

Fueling Our Mission with Creativity and Collaboration 

Resource conservation doesn’t have to stop us from achieving our mission. In fact, using our limited resources creatively sharpens our focus and, just like Apollo 13, will be a key factor in our own inspiring story. Our special education and finance teams, for example, demonstrated incredible resourcefulness and ingenuity this past year and were able to bring in a record $10.5 million in safety net ($2.5 million more than we budgeted and $4 million more than the previous year!). We should also be encouraged by the fact that we have community partners who are leaning in to help. This summer, the Bellevue Schools Foundation donated $150,000 (on top of a previous $1 million donation) to fund an additional elementary mental health counselor. Bellevue LifeSpring delivered a check clearing away $45,000 of unpaid lunch debt so that all students could start the year debt free.  

Also announced this past summer, U.S. News & World Report named Bellevue as the #4 best city to live in in the country for quality of life, with our district referenced as top in the state. They also recently announced that our high schools again are rated among the best in the nation. All of this is a reminder that even in tight times, our mission remains within reach. 

Our Academic Focus This Year  

This year, our collective focus is guided by our board-approved annual plan goals: strengthening early literacy, accelerating math achievement, addressing chronic absenteeism, and stabilizing our finances. For Apollo 13, the mission was to get the three astronauts back to earth safely. Our district’s mission is just as ambitious and compelling: to affirm and inspire each and every student to learn and thrive as creators of their future world. Our annual plan goals are the trajectory and coordinates that will get us there. 

As we launch the 2025–2026 school year, let’s embrace the challenge of using our resources with precision and ingenuity and by doing so demonstrate our collective can-do spirit. Together, as we tackle problems with only what we have on the table (and maybe a little duct tape), we’re destined to have our best year as a school district yet. 

With excitement, 

Dr. Kelly Aramaki 
Superintendent, Bellevue School District