Moses Lake board discusses possible levy, bond Aug. 7

MOSES LAKE - The Moses Lake School Board has scheduled a work session to discuss the options for a maintenance and operations levy, as well as possible options for a construction bond. The meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Aug. 7 in the conference room at the district's transportation office, 940 East Yonezawa Blvd.

District superintendent Michelle Price said the board will discuss time lines for a possible levy vote, and whether or not to offer a bond sometime in 2015 or 2016. The current M&O levy expires in 2015, Price said. The board tentatively has decided to run a replacement, and will discuss a possible dollar amount and possible dates.

The levy proposal could be on the ballot the same time as a bond proposal - or not, Price said. District voters passed a M&O levy but rejected a construction bond in February 2012.

That bond proposal included a new high school and two new elementary schools, according to previous stories in the Columbia Basin Herald. District officials considered the overcrowding problem most acute at Moses Lake High School and Frontier and Chief Moses middle schools. But overcrowding is starting to affect the district's 10 elementary schools, Price said.

At current enrollment projections, "we're 100 percent maxed out going into fall at the elementary schools," Price said.

Washington residents will consider an initiative in November that would mandate reductions in class size for kindergarten and first grade. The initiative doesn't include any mechanism to pay for extra classrooms, Price said. If it passes, Moses Lake and most other school districts in the state would be out of compliance, Price said, and districts would have to work out how they would pay for the extra construction.

The high school has implemented a sliding schedule where students have a choice of starting times, starting this fall. But district officials don't think that will solve the problem in the long run, Price said. The board has approved a tentative plan to start year round school, but consideration of a bond would affect the timeline of that implementation, she said.

If board members do decide to look further at a bond, the first step would be to solicit volunteers for a committee, Price said. The new committee would start from scratch, she said, and talk to district patrons to determine their current opinions on the feasibility of a bond.