Superintendent explains growth issue

Editor's note: Below is a large portion of a letter Superintendent Michelle Price sent to Moses Lake School District patrons earlier this year. She submitted it for this week's editorial page.

We are a fortunate community to continue to be experiencing growth. With growth, come some unique challenges.

In 2007, a construction bond was passed to build two new elementary schools, a gym at Chief Moses Middle School, a transportation facility, to improve safety and technology, and to renovate Lions Field. The last of these projects, the transportation facility, opened this fall. The Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center is under construction using funds allocated from the legislature to serve 11 different communities.

As one would expect, the elementary growth has been moving to the secondary (6th - 12th) grades. In an effort to address secondary growth, we have added portables, rented space, modified schedules, and attempted a construction bond in 2012. The bond needed 60 percent to pass. The voters supported the bond measure with 50.4 percent yes votes. Due to the economic climate and the burden already carried by our tax payers, the board decided not to rerun the 2012 bond and to engage the community in a process to identify, "What does secondary education in Moses Lake look like using our current facilities?"

During the 2012-2013 school year, district personnel met with staff and community members to gather ideas, hear concerns, evaluate the pros and cons of options, identify community/staff impacts, and analyze student program and financial implications. Four options were presented to the school board in late March. The school board spent four months reviewing the options and weighing them against the filters that they identified. This has been a very emotional and difficult decision but we believe that there is an opportunity to reduce secondary crowding on the short term and to eliminate it on the long term using current facilities.

On Aug. 8, 2013 the Moses Lake School Board voted to take the following action on secondary crowding:

• Beginning in 2014-2015, Columbia Basin Secondary School (CBSS) will become a middle school. The data shows that what we are currently doing at CBSS is not working as shown by a six-year trend of graduation rates averaging at 25 percent. Alternatives for students have grown in the district. By making CBSS a middle school, crowding is isolated to grades 9-12, which maximizes state matching funds if a future construction bond is preferred by the community.
• Beginning in 2014-2015, Moses Lake High School will move to a six or seven period day with the potential for evening classes to be offered. The shorter periods will allow for more flexibility with the master schedule.
• Beginning in 2016 - 2017, all schools in the Moses Lake School District will transition to a year round school schedule. All students would continue to attend school for 180 days but the instructional and vacation schedule will be based on neighborhood boundaries, creating four distinctive schedules or tracks.

Preparations for the 2013-2014 school year are in process. Three different teams of teachers and administrators are working on the following:

1) Middle School Design Team: The team will design a middle school program that will provide for an excellent learning opportunity for any students who are assigned or choose to attend the new middle school. They will ensure that state requirements and district adopted curriculum are built into the program with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math.

• Timeline: December, 2013, Summary of work-to-date presented to board
• March, 2014, Program design approved by the board
• April - May, Community boundary process
• April - May, Staffing process

2) CBSS High School Transition Team: The team will plan for transitions needed to ensure that the CBSS high school students can earn their diploma together as a cohort under the same graduation requirements that they entered their freshman year with. The team will plan for program and scheduling needs. The location of where the student services will be provided will be brainstormed but decided by administration and the board.

• Timeline: December, 2013, Summary of the work to date to the school board.
• April - May, Staffing process

3) High School Transition Team: The team will plan for the schedule change at Moses Lake High School. This includes recommendations to the board on graduation requirements, program offerings, and schedule.

• Timeline: December 2013, Present a summary of the work to date to the school board.
• January, 2014, Graduation policy and transition plan approved by the board
• February, 2014, Course description guide completed for registration
• April - May, Staffing process