ML school board sets crowding work session

MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake School Board members will meet May 11 to talk over the recommendations given by district officials to address secondary school overcrowding.

The meeting will be from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the district's resource center, 1000 West Ivy Ave. Board members will review a 486-page compilation of suggestions and information gathered during six months of meetings and surveys.

From that, district administrators came up with four recommendations. The first option is to do nothing and continue to use methods school officials have been using, which include portable classrooms, redistricting the middle schools and converting rooms used for other purposes to classrooms.

The second option would expand the high school schedule and convert Columbia Basin Secondary School (CBSS) to a middle school. Currently CBSS is the district's 7-12 alternative school.

The third option would move sixth graders back to the district's 10 elementary schools, and delay expansion of the all-day kindergarten program. The high school would still go to an extended day.

The fourth option is year-round school, which would be implemented districtwide. Children would still go to school 180 days, with one-fourth of the students on vacation at any given time.

Superintendent Michelle Price said all the recommendations and discussions were reviewed to determine whether or not they were good options for the district. She gave board members a list of suggestions gleaned from the public meetings, and the reasons district officials thought they would or wouldn't work.

In answer to a question about double shifts from board member Vicki Groff, Price said the board can revisit any idea any time it wants.

In other business at the last school board meeting, Mark Johnson, executive director of business and operations, reported that interior work is underway at the district's new transportation facility. Some framing is up for the skills center, which will house vocational classes for Moses Lake and nine other school districts.

Johnson said both projects have had few change orders, which are changes in construction, which follows a trend district officials saw when Sage Point and Park Orchard elementary schools were built. As a result the district's contingency fund is still mostly intact, he said.