Stay connected with Columbia Basin Secondary School

To Columbia Basin Secondary School parents: Keep the communication lines open with counselors and school administrators.

CBSS is being converted to a neighborhood middle school next year. It means current CBSS students will have to transition to Moses Lake High School, a place some may have already left for various reasons.

CBSS serves as Moses Lake High School's alternative middle school and high school for grades 7-12.

We can understand why a parent would be worried about their child's academic progress, especially if CBSS' offerings and schedule worked well for their son or daughter.

But there are other considerations to take into account. The graduation rate was 27.4 percent for the class of 2012, according to the State Report Card from the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Other alternative schools in the Columbia Basin achieved significantly higher graduation rates of 78.6 percent at Smokiam Alternative High School in Soap Lake and 62.17 percent at Sage Hills High School in Ephrata.

In Moses Lake, Columbia Basin Secondary School is considered a priority school and has an on-site coach to help meet its progress goals, according to Cindy Duncan at the North Central Educational Service District.

It appears the Moses Lake School Board made a difficult but necessary decision to convert CBSS.

There are transition teams in place, comprised of teachers, to help students with the move from CBSS to Moses Lake High School or to the converted middle school (now CBSS).

The new middle school will have the same curriculum as Frontier and Chief Moses middle schools, but their elective focus would be science, engineering, technology and math (STEM), according to Dave Balcom, the school district's director of student services. (He and other administrators and the school board recently met with the Columbia Basin Herald's Editorial Board.)

Balcom is leading the transition team at CBSS, and CBSS Principal James Yonko is head of the transition team helping students move to the middle school.

Balcom explains their transition team is leaning toward the current ninth, tenth and eleventh graders staying together as a CBSS cohort.

A total of 32 CBSS students transferred to Moses Lake High School this fall, which leaves about 90 CBSS students (ninth through eleventh graders) who will have to continue outside the alternative school.

The timing works well for some of those students because of the opening of the Columbia Basin Skills Center in September, Balcom said. It is an opportunity for electives to be enhanced.

To learn more about the transition teams' progress, attend the Dec. 5 Moses Lake School Board meeting. It starts at 7 p.m. and takes place at the new board room at 940 E. Yonezawa Blvd.

- Editorial Board