Moses Lake secondary overcrowding focus of meeting

MOSES LAKE - The pros and cons of year-round school for secondary students, an extended school day for secondary students and other options were discussed at the second of four meetings recently.

The gatherings are designed to come up with solutions to the problem of overcrowding at the high school and middle schools in Moses Lake.

The first meeting in September produced some suggestions, including year-round school, an extended school day, students attending class in two shifts, and a college-style schedule at the high school.

Participants at the September meeting asked for more information on the district's budget, where the money comes from and where it goes. They also asked if the school's current four-period schedule could accommodate an extended day, where there were extra classes before and after the regularly scheduled school day.

Moses Lake High School Principal Josh Meek said it would be difficult. Currently each class is about 90 minutes, and for any given period about 25 percent of the teachers have a planning period, he said, which means other teachers can use the classroom during that time. That allows the high school to have more teachers than classrooms, he said.

Changing to a six-period day would mean more classes in the same space, which would cut down on the number of extra classrooms available at any given time, he said.

An extended schedule wouldn't work with a four-period day, Meek said, because the extra morning class would have to begin about 6:15 p.m., and extra afternoon class could be dismissed as late as 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m.

But an extended schedule would be easier to accommodate with a six-period day, Meek said. That schedule would give administrators more flexibility and possibly allow them to offer more choices to students, he said.

Mark Johnson, the district's director of business and operations, said the 2012-13 budget projects operating revenues of $71.9 million and expenses of about $74.3 million. The shortfall between income and expenses is bridged by district reserves (savings), he said. About 60 percent of revenue is generated through state-funded basic school support, which is based on the number of kids in school.

The rest comes from state and federal special programs and the locally-approved levy, he said.

About 79 percent of the budget, approximately $31 million, goes to teacher (certificated) salaries, Johnson said. Salaries for classified staff (aides) is about $11 million, and benefits paid to all employees totals about $16 million, he said.

The new Columbia Basin Skills Center will offer more vocational opportunities to students, but it won't help with overcrowding, said Dave Balcom, the district's director of secondary education. The skills center is run by an 11-school consortium, and students still will spend part of their school day at their home school.

Participants were asked to break up into smaller groups, and in those discussions the suggestion was made to shift sixth graders back to the grade schools and ninth graders to the middle schools. But it was unclear if the elementary schools could accommodate the sixth grade.

Another suggestion was one building dedicated to sixth grade, but again it was unclear if the district had the space. One participant asked if the district could rent extra space for classrooms, but one of the moderators said that's been explored and wasn't cost-effective.

A split schedule, where some kids attended in the morning and others in the afternoon, drew some interest, as did a college-style schedule at the high school. In that scenario students choose their classes and are at school only while they're in class. But the impact on extracurricular activities was still unclear.

The idea of year-round school caused one senior to remark he wouldn't want to spend the summer of his senior year going to school. The year round school proposal would add a summer session, and about one-quarter of the student body would be out of school at any given time.

Participants were asked to rank the options presented so far; the information will be available on the district's website by Dec. 12 and will be discussed at the next meeting, set for Jan. 17 at the high school.