Overcrowding meeting sees many suggestions

MOSES LAKE - Comments from a Thursday community meeting seeking ideas to alleviate overcrowding in the school district's middle and high schools will be posted on the district's website. School officials hope the series of meetings produce a solution that will be implemented in the next school year.

District patrons rejected a construction bond request in February which would have paid for a second high school and two new elementary schools. Once the grade schools were completed, the sixth graders would have been moved back to the elementary schools.

But since district voters rejected the bond, school officials have to look for other ways to address intermediate and secondary overcrowding, said district Superintendent Michelle Price.

The approximately 150 participants were asked what they thought was part of a good high school education and how district officials can address the overcrowding to make that good education happen.

Moses Lake High School was built to house about 1,700 students, Price said, but the current student population is about 2,200. Chief Moses Middle School has about 1,000 students, while Frontier Middle School has about 750.

Some of the suggestions made by participants are already on the list compiled by district officials, including double shifts, where separate groups of students attend class in the morning and afternoon, and year-round school, where about one-fourth of the students are out of school at any given time.

At least one participant attended a school that double-shifted and while it wasn't great it was workable, she said. But an afternoon shift would interfere with after-school academic and extracurricular activities, she said.

Other suggestions included a staggered start, with some students beginning classes an hour earlier than others, and a college-style schedule, where students are attending classes each day but not necessarily on campus all day. Another suggestion was using the high school theater for lecture classes.

The high school already uses portable classrooms, Price said, and the district already is close to the maximum allowed on the premises. There might be more room for portables at the district's elementary schools, and some people suggested adding more portables where they would fit, move the sixth graders back to the grade schools and the ninth grade to the middle school.

The crowd was subdivided into smaller groups, and in those discussions the suggestion was made for teachers to share classrooms. But that's already in effect at the high school.

Multiple participants suggested converting the existing elementary buildings from neighborhood schools to different grades, all kindergartners through third graders at one school being one example cited.

One group suggested district officials check to see if all the existing space was being used to its maximum capacity, if any classrooms or administrative offices are empty at any time during the day. Multiple groups suggested using the cafeteria when it's not serving meals.

Other suggestions included expanding the existing high school, rather than building a new one, or adding a second story to the existing building. The original high school (now Frontier) also suffered from overcrowding, and one group suggested researching how the problem was addressed at the time.

One participant asked if the skills center, which will open in fall 2014, would alleviate any crowding.

The meeting was the first of four on the subject, with recommendations for the Moses Lake School Board to be made in April. The next meeting is Nov. 29 in the high school choir room.