Moses Lake to discuss overcrowding of schools

MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake School District patrons are being invited to a series of meetings, beginning Sept. 20, to look for ways to alleviate overcrowding at the high school and middle schools.

The first three meetings, Sept. 20, Nov. 29 and Jan. 17, 2013 will be in the choir room at Moses Lake High School. The last meeting will be March 21 at the Moses Lake Civic Center theater. The first meeting will be facilitated by Gene Sharratt, former superintendent of the North Central Washington ESD.

Spanish translation will be provided. There will be no child care.

The meetings will result in a recommendation that will be submitted to the Moses Lake School Board in April 2013, said district Superintendent Michelle Price. Whatever the board decides will be implemented for the 2013-14 school year, but full implementation probably will take two years, Price said.

The high school currently has about 2,100 students, in a building built to house about 1,700. "It's the infrastructure that's the problem," Price said; there's room to build more classrooms, but bathrooms and hallways aren't built for the traffic. The lunchroom is too small to hold the current student body, and in order to accommodate everyone high school officials have had to schedule four lunch periods.

Frontier Middle School has about 710 students, and Chief Moses Middle School has about 1,000. Columbia Basin Secondary School doesn't have a waiting list but it is nearing capacity, Price said.

District officials already have considered various ideas, but want to hear what district patrons have to say. "We don't want to have the answers right now. We want to listen," Price said.

She's asking people to consider what makes up a quality high school education, the skills students will need to qualify for college and work, and how the district's existing facilities fit that picture. The answers will form the background to the recommendations.

District officials have talked about running two shifts per day. But, Price said, schools that have done that didn't stay with it. Year-round school is another possibility that's been discussed, with about one-fourth of the students and staff on vacation in each quarter.

Another possibility is utilizing Columbia Basin Secondary School as a middle school or high school, or assigning students from one area of the district to the building. District officials also have discussed a college-style schedule, with classes at specific times, Price said.

But district officials mostly are interested in listening to district patrons, Price said. They want to hear from everyone, whether or not patrons have kids in the middle school or high school.

In February district patrons rejected a proposal to build a second high school and two elementary schools. Price said she has been asked why the bond included a second high school and not an expansion at the existing high school. The committee that worked on the bond proposal conducted a survey, Price said, and the survey results included a clear preference for a second school.